sermons 



■L. F'owf-il 




Class _BX_7^T 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



The Victory of Faith. 



SERMONS AND ADDRESSES 






By EV'L/ Powell, 

Pastor of the First Christian Church, 
Louisville, Ky. 



St. Louis : 

Christian Pubushing Company. 

1905. 






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UBRAJIYorCO«l€RESS 
TvoOtoies Raoenr&c! 

JAN 2 1906 

CofomctN &«;y 
/fCLASS CK XXc no. 
COPY B. 



COPYIUGHT, 1905, 

CHRISTL\N PUBLISHING CO.. 
St. Locis, Mo. 



INTRODUCTION 

The sermon is the stateliest and most noble form of 
human speech. It deals with the deepest questions and 
most vital subjects that can engage the attention of man. 
The preacher who has a real message from God, and can 
deliver it in such a way as to command the attention of the 
public, is a blessing to any age. He is a prophet of God, 
and his utterances cannot fail to profoundly impress the 
public mind. When such a preacher has power to clothe 
his message in winning .speech, and to breathe into it a 
passion which it has begotten in his own heart, his sermons 
have an added value and are entitled to a wider hearing 
than they can receive from the pulpit, no matter how large 
the audiences may be. 

The author of these sermons combines, in a remarkable 
degree, these essential elements of a great preacher: clear- 
ness of thought, power of imagination and feeling, and the 
gift of vivid expression. He sees truth in its larger rela- 
tions and has a clear grasp of the fundamental verities of 
religion. He sees too clearly the great and vital issues of 
Christianity to waste much time on doubtful disputations. 
The volume of sermons which is here offered to the public 
is scarcely less notable for the topics it discusses than for 
the vigor of style in which they are treated. 

It is proper to say that many of these sermons were re- 
ported stenographically, and have been printed just as they 
were delivered. They possess, therefore, the spontaneity of 

5 



INTRODUCTION 

extempore speech which is often more highly prized by the 
reader than mere Hterary elegance. It is, perhaps, as true 
of preachers as it is of poets, that they are born, rather than 
made, and there can be no doubt but that the author of these 
glowing sermons is a born preacher whose education and 
religious experience, added to a natural aptitude, have fitted 
him for a wide ministry. The publishers have done well to 
send forth this volume of sermons, and the writer can but 
bespeak for them an extensive and careful reading, not 
only because of a deep personal friendship for the author 
but because of a high appreciation of the religious value 
of the sermons themselves. 
ST. LOUIS, MO. J. H. GARRISON. 



SUBJECTS. 

Chapter. Page. 
L— The Victory of Faith 11 

II.— God^s Power 20 

III.— The Natural Man and the Spiritual Man 31 

IV.— A Soul Battle. 41 

v.— Christ's Treatment of Doubt, or Faith Tri- 
umphant 48 

VI.— E)aster Hopes 56 

VII. — Missions: The Crowning Glory of the Cen- 
tury 63 

VIII.— The Cradle and Christmas 87 

IX.— The Three Dimensions of Manhood 99 

X.— Our Liberty in Christ 114 

XI. — The vSpecific for Beauty 129 

XII.— Your Own, or Another's— Which? 140 

XIII.— The Minister in the Market Place 153 

XIV.— An Outline Sermon 169 

XV.— Is There a Hell? 174 

XVI.— The All-Conquering Name 1S7 

XVII.-The Castaway., 201 

XVIII.— Is There a Heaven? 215 

XIX.— Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 233 

XX.— Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable?... 249 



SERMONS AND ADDRESSES 

—BY— 

E. L. POWELL. 



THE VICTORY OF FAITH 

For whatsoever is begotten of God, overcometh tne world: 
and this is the victory that hath overcome the world, even our 
faith.— 1 John 5:4. 

What is faith? What is the world which 
faith overcomes? How does faith overcome 
the world? — these are the three questions sug- 
gested by our text. I am authorized, both by- 
Scripture and human consciousness, in affirm- 
ing that the soul of man is endowed with 
power to recognize and to be influenced by the 
invisible — the power to make actual, in thought 
and life, the unseen. The painting upon 
which we gaze, enraptured, is but the visible 
expression of the invisible beauty which has 
been seized and seen by the soul of the artist. 
The idealized statue is but the invisible 
thought which has haunted the sculptor's 
imagination until he has embodied it in stone. 
And so Christian character is but the outward 
and visible manifestation of unseen spiritual 
realities which the soul of the Christian has 
grasped and actualized. Now, faith is that 
active principle which brings into exercise this 
capacity of the soul to see and to be influenced 

11 



The Victory of Faith 

by the invisible. It is this power of the soul 
at work — making real and actual the things 
which do not appear. This capacity to lay 
hold of the unseen is inlierent in the soul. It 
is as nuicli a part of the soul as conscience, or 
reason, or love. Its exercise — which is faith — 
is dependent upon the will of man. As 
another has said: ^ 'Jesus expected people to 
believe when he presented evidence, as you 
expect one to look if you show him a picture. 
Positive unbelief or absolute incapac- 
ity of faith, Jesus refused to pity or condone. 
It was not a misfortune; it \vas a wilful act. It 
was atrophy through misuse or neglect, and 
was to his mind, sin.'' If one refuses to use 
his eyes, which God has given him to be used, 
he is to be censured; if one refuses to exercise 
his power to see the invisible — a power which 
is inherent in his nature — he is likewise to be 
condemned. It is in this sense that Jesus uses 
the word faith. It is the proper and normal 
exercise of a God-given power. Hence he 
censured men for permitting those influences 
which blunt the souPs susceptibility to unseen 
things to have sway, and thus to interfere with 
faith. ''How can ye believe, which receive 
honor one of another, and seek not the honor 
which Cometh from God only?" If this power 
to apprehend the unseen were not inherent, 
then surely these Jews were not to be blamed 

12 



The Victory of Faith 

for not exercising that power by believing. 
The capacity to see spiritual things comes from 
God; the exercise of that capacity — or faith — 
belongs to man, and he is held responsible for 
permitting this capacity to suffer from misuse 
or neglect. It is thus that the word faith is 
used in the apostolic writings time and again, 
as when Paul says, "We walk by faith and not 
by sight." Faith moves in the realm of the 
invisible, just as sight moves in the realm of 
the visible. There can be, therefore, no con- 
flict between faith and science. The one's 
world is invisible; the other's visible. Now, 
with this idea of faith, the nature of this world 
which faith overcomes is apparent. It is the 
realm of sight. It is the province of the rule 
and yard-stick, in which things are to be meas- 
ured and weighed. Here the senses rule and 
reign. To overcome this world is to be deliv- 
ered from the dominion of the senses. It mat- 
ters not whether this world which we see and 
handle be good or bad — so long as we are un- 
able to pierce beyond the visible — we are in 
bondage. In other words, life is materialistic. 
The man to whom the ocean is only a passage- 
way for ships; to whom a sunset is only a 
meaningless combination of colors; to whom 
the flowers suggest nothing beyond the thing 
which he sees with his naked eye — such an one 
is dominated by the world of our text — the 

13 



The Victory of Faith 

'world of the senses — the world which shuts out 
faith from its borders. He is a worldly man, 
but not a man of faith. He has not so much 
as crossed the threshold of the only real world 
— the invisible world. Who of us has not felt 
this tyranny of the senses? It converts God's 
earth into acres, and gives us no horizon other 
than that which the eye can scan. 

One may be a materialist even though the 
part of the world with which he has to do is 
refining. He is a materialist when he refuses 
to exercise the souPs power to see the invisible 
— when he lives as though the only real things 
are those which can be seen, touched and 
handled. One need not turn prodigal in order 
to have the charge of worldliness brought with 
truth against him. He is worldly — is overcome 
by the world — when he is of the ^ 'earth, 
earthy,'' when he sees only matter in this 
mighty and glorious habitation in which we 
dwell — when nature brings to the soul only that 
which the eye of sense has scanned, and does 
not reveal herself to him, like the King's 
daughter, 'lovely within." 

Let us turn now to consider the last question. 
How does faith overcome the world? How 
shall a man be delivered from the bondage of 
the visible — the bondage of the senses? 

I. First by discovering the invisible beauty 
— the hidden meaning — which lies concealed 

14 



The Victory of Faith 

beneath the visible and outward. This is the 
office of faith. The soul has the power to see 
this invisible beauty that is inherent. Faith is 
the cultivation and exercise of this power. It 
is cultivated by right thinking — '^Think on 
those things that are pure," etc. And the 
more you think about them, the more real will 
they become — the more the soul's power to be 
influenced by them will be developed. It is 
cultivated by right living. '*The saint sees 
farther on his knees than the philosopher on 
tiptoe." Right living sharpens the souPs 
vision. One may so brutalize his nature as to 
be unable to see spiritual things at all. 

But when we have once seen the invisible 
beauty, our souls are freed from the bondage of 
the visible. The visible becomes only the 
form; the invisible the soul. We have found 
the kernel; we care not for the shell. The out- 
ward and external is of value only because it 
holds the unseen and real. Take an illustration 
from the Apostle Paul. If we view the out- 
ward forms in which affliction robes itself, we 
are crushed. We see only tears and wreck. 
But we ^^faint not," says the apostle, ^Svhile 
we look not at the things which are seen, but 
at the things which are unseen." Faith sees 
that which the eye of sense cannot see — an 
* ^eternal weight of glory." And seeing that it 
gains the victory over the affliction. It con- 

15 



The Victory of Faith 

quers the visible by going beneath the visible 
and plucking out the heart of its loveliness. 
And so it is that faith gains the victory over all 
the visible by which our life is dominated and 
controlled. 

2. Faith overcomes the world by discovering 
the true character of its manifestations. Faith 
not only recognizes the invisible, but recognizes 
the invisible as real and enduring. ^^Forthe 
things that are seen are temporal; but the 
things which are unseen are eternal." Let the 
soul once discover — as a matter of profound 
conviction — that the world is only a * fashion," 
a fleeting show — a moving, shifting panorama 
— and that the only eternal thing is the invis- 
ible life which is back of it all — and at once 
the chains of its bondage are broken. We 
overcome the world by detecting what it is — its 
real nature. Thus Christianity has given to 
faith the victory over death. The appearance 
frightened men, until it was shown to be only 
the shadow which life casts. Faith goes be- 
neath the surface; pierces the outward and vis- 
ible and there finds life. Faith cannot be satis- 
fied with seeming. It must have reality, and 
when it finds the reality which death holds, lo, 
it is immortality! Thus faith gets the victory 
over the world, over death, over all the visible 
forms and shapes which flit before the eye of 
sense, and deceive the timid souls that have 

16 



The Victory of Faith 

not given faith her glorious opportunity and 
privilege. Faith lays hold of the invisible as 
the eternal, and so escapes from the dominion 
of the visible. 

3. Finally, faith overcomes the world by 
appropriating the divine life of Jesus. '^And 
who is he that overcometh the world, but he 
that believeth that Jesus is the Son of God?" 
This faith in Jesus, of which the text speaks, 
is an overcoming faith — a conquering faith — 
and hence an active, working, energizing prin- 
ciple. What sort of faith in Jesus is it that 
overcomes the world, that subdues the visible 
and temporal and brings us under the dominion 
of the invisible and the eternal? What sort of 
faith in Jesus is it that thus converts the mate- 
rial into the spiritual? Is it the mental assent 
to the truthfulness of the proposition that Jesus 
is the Son of God? One may believe that prop- 
osition to be true forevermore and yet have a 
faith with no overcoming power. Hundreds 
thus do believe over whom the tyranny of the 
world has never abated. They are still the 
bond-slaves of the visible. The world is still 
their master — the world of the senses. They 
live, move and have their being in a material- 
istic atmosphere. Their faith has not carried 
them out of the realm of the seen, and is there- 
fore no faith at all in the sense in which we are 
using the term to-day. 
(2) 17 



The Victory of Faith 

What sort of faith in Jesus is it, then, that 
overcomes the world — that gives us power to 
rise above the sensuous and to find our true life 
in the realm of the immaterial and eternal? 
Is it faith in the fleshly Christ — faith in Jesus 
as a bodily presence in the world? Paul will 
not have it so. He will not know even Jesus 
* 'after the flesh. ' ' To accept in our thinking and 
feeling the fleshly, bodily presence of our Lord 
is to be in the realm of the material. It 
is simply an intellectual exercise. We do 
accept it as a matter of fact and history, but 
that of itself has no overcoming and conquering 
power. That does not help us to rise superior 
to the visible and thus to overcome it — to shake 
off the bondage of the sensuous and visible. 
Again, we ask, what sort of faith in Jesus is it 
that overcomes the world? Sight will reveal 
to us only a Jewish peasant; faith enables us to 
recognize the spiritual and unseen presence of 
divine beauty and goodness, manifesting itself 
for a while in the flesh, and then, through that 
temporary manifestation, seeking eternal mani- 
festation in our lives — in the men and women 
of this day. 

The faith, therefore, in Jesus which over- 
comes the world, which has conquering power, 
is that which appropriates him as an unseen, 
but inspiring presence in the human heart — 
which makes him a dominating and controlling 

18 



The Victory of Faith 

energy in all our thinking and feeling. And 
so it is added in this Scripture, — ^^He that hath 
the Son" — as a spiritual possession — '^hath 
life." 

To appropriate this life is to overcome the 
world as Jesus overcame it — to overcome it by 
sharing his mind about it, as for instance that 
a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of 
the things which he possesseth; to overcome it 
by sharing his spirit in the treatment of it- — the 
spirit which ever recognized the invisible good 
beneath the outward and visible evil, and 
sought to set it free; to overcome it by sharing 
his faith in the final victory of righteousness — 
catching enthusiasm from that which does not 
as yet appear — and to share his faith that out 
of suffering joy shall come — ^'looking unto 
Jesus the author and finisher of the faith" — 
who recognized joy in the cross — who pierced 
the visible and saw the invisible heaven of hap- 
piness beneath it. 

To believe in Jesus in this way — appropriat- 
ing and making our own his mind, his spirit, 
his faith — is to overcome the world through 

faith in him. 

19 



II 

GOD'S POWER 

For I am not ashamed of the g^ospel: for it is the power of God 
unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and 
also to the Greek.— RoM. 1:16. 

I HAVE chosen a most familiar text — one 
that has done battle in many a theological con- 
troversy, and one that has been wielded most 
successfully in winning men to a loving accept- 
ance of Jesus Christ as their Savior. It is a 
great text — great as respects its subject-matter, 
bringing before us in small compass the mighty 
words — Gospel, power, faith and salvation — 
and great in its marvelous sweep and compre- 
hensiveness, for how much is involved in the 
simple language employed. Let us study it to- 
day afresh, opening our souls to the reception 
of whatever blessing it may contain. 

We read the opening word — the Gospel — and 
its familiar sound is pleasant to the ear. It 
casts over us its own spell — a heavenly spell. 
x\s David said of the sword with which he be- 
headed his enemy, so we say of this glorious 
Gospel whose victories cannot be numbered — 
**Give us that. There is none like it.'' None 

like it! So we say and feel as we read of its 

20 



God's Power 

mighty achievements in the earth. None like 
it! So we say and feel when it is brought into 
comparison with whatever other religions have 
to offer to weary and heavy-laden humanity. 
In this sign we conquer. Under this banner we 
will fight. 

Paul was not ashamed of it in Imperial 
Rome — the mistress of the world. What a 
message! It is the good-tidings of God * 'con- 
cerning his Son Jesus Christ" — telling us of 
the love that gave Jesus to die. It is a revela- 
tion of the life of God — for in the life of Jesus 
Christ the kind of righteousness that God 
wants us to have is made manifest. It is a 
message adapted to all men and all classes, 
therefore universal in its nature. It is the 
great panacea for a sin-sick world, and therefore 
the apostle felt himself in duty bound to preach 
it wherever an opportunity offered. 

The Gospel is God's love-letter to the world, 
in which by showing forth his love in the death 
of Christ he tells us how intense is his desire 
for our recovery from sin — and in which, by 
manifesting his own righteousness in the life of 
Christ, he appeals to us: *'Be ye holy as I am 
holy.'' lyct us not seek to compress this Gos- 
pel in the narrow limits of a definition. Very 
many things are true of it; certain facts form 
component parts of it — but the things that 
enter into it are so infinite in their suggestive- 

21 



God's Power 

ness that we cannot say that our definition 
embraces all of the Gospel. That is to make 
our little ceiling the infinite dome of heaven. 
That is to say that the word sky, which we can 
write on apiece of paper and put in our pocket, 
is coextensive with the magnificent blue be- 
yond whose horizon no mortal can go. 

I wish this morning to talk to you of the 
Gospel as God^s power unto salvation and the 
necessary means to be employed in making 
that power effective in securing this gracious 
end. 

I. First, the Gospel is the power of God 
unto salvation. It is not only a message, but a 
message surcharged with divine power. It not 
only recites certain great facts — the death, 
burial and resurrection of Christ — but these 
facts throb with divine energy. It not only 
brings before us the righteousness of God, ex- 
emplified in the perfect life of Christ, but that 
righteousness is mighty unto the conquest of 
sin. One distinguishing characteristic of the 
Gospel is power; the characteristic of the law is 
weakness — ''that which the law could not do 
in that it was weak through the flesh, God by 
sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful 
flesh, condemned sin in the flesh." The Gospel 
is God's power to "condemn'' or kill sin in the 
flesh — to forgive our sins — and then to com- 

22 



God's Power 

pletely deliver us from the power and dominion 
of sin. 

The very purpose of the Gospel indicates the 
need of divine power to accomplish it. Think 
of it! Man needs pardon— needs the power to 
conquer self— and needs the inspiration and 
motive that will keep him in the path of duty. 
Where, outside the Gospel, can these things be 
found? This the Gospel offers, as we shall see. 
It is God's power to turn man from sin — and 
thus bring about his forgiveness; God's power 
to enable him to daily conquer sin and God's 
power to inspire him to holy living — ever lead- 
ing him up to that which is still higher and 
better. 

Let us now consider, for a few moments, the 
nature of this power. What kind of power 
is it? 

(a) It must be remembered that it is God's 
power unto salvation. It must be a power, 
therefore, suited to secure this end. The end 
to be secured is salvation. But salvation is 
subjective. It simply means the deliverance of 
the soul from sin. God forgives, but the for- 
giveness must be a soul experience, and day 
by day as we are being delivered from the 
power of sin, it is a process going on within. 
It is a soul-state, and hence the power that is 
to bring about that spiritual condition must be 
a spiritual power. It is not an outside power, 

23 



God's Power 

working from without, but it is a power ap- 
propriated by the soul, which works from 
within. This we shall emphasize more, pres- 
ently. Just now you can see why all theories 
of conversion and salvation that represent the 
Holy Spirit as exerting physical power cannot 
be upheld. The very nature of salvation for- 
bids them. 

(b) In what, then, does the spiritual power 
of the Gospel consist? What is there in the 
Gospel in the way of power, that when appro- 
priated by man will result in his salvation? 

(i) The power of divine love. *'God so 
loved," etc. This is the divine appeal to man 
to turn away from sin. Men go on in sin 
when they think nobody cares. What is the 
use of being good? God loves you. He cares. 
To show you how much he cares; to make 
known to you how passionate is his desire for 
your recovery; to tell you how intense is his 
anxiety — he gives his only Son. Oh, if this 
will not lead men to turn away from sin, noth- 
ing will. That is the meaning of the death of 
Christ. Infinitely more it may mean, but that 
is on its face. It is God's appeal to man to 
repent, to love him in view of his own love to 
man. Is there no pozverin such love? Who 
has not felt the power of human love? A 
mother's love has drawn back many a wan- 
derer. The poor boy has said, * ^Mother cares; 

24 



God's Power 

she loves me. It will break her heart.'' And 
he has turned to righteousness. 

(2) Furthermore we have in the Gospel the 
power of a perfect example. We are not only 
to be turned away from sin, but we need to 
know what kind of life we must live in order 
to be acceptable to God. Here again the 
Gospel comes to our rescue. *'For therein is 
revealed the righteousness of God which is by 
faith." ''For Christ is the end of the law for 
righteousness to every one that believeth." In 
other words, in the life and character of Christ 
we have the righteousness that is acceptable to 
God. This is what is demanded — the Christ- 
life; not the legal, ceremonial, and impossible 
righteousness of the old Jewish law. Legal, 
in that outward conformity would meet all of 
its requirements; ceremonial, in that it was 
supposed that efficacy was attached to outward 
observances, and impossible, in that no man 
could keep them. The righteousness which 
the Gospel requires demands not only that a 
man's outward life be clean, but that his heart 
be right, and subordinates all outward observ- 
ances to the rank of helps to the development 
of the spiritual life. 

The only kind of righteousness that will 
deliver us from sin is a righteousness of the 
heart. ''With the heart man believeth unto 
righteousness. " It is the Christ-life that calls us. 

25 



God's Power 

(3) But we need more in trying to get rid 
of sin and to live a life of righteousness. We 
need to have the inspiration which comes from 
the belief that the goal toward which we have 
started — perfection of character — is possible of 
attainment. Can we ever be entirely rid of 
sin? Can we ever be completely freed from 
these appetites and passions? As we plod 
along, falling time and again, we need a great 
hope to sustain us. This the Gospel gives us. 
It brings to us the ''power of the life to come.'' 
The resurrection of Christ from the dead tells 
us of a future life, and so we hope that how- 
ever imperfect here our lives may be, there is 
eternity in which they may attain unto perfec- 
tion. This hope inspires us and nerves us. 
This leads us to do our best, confident that in 
another land the great work will be finished. 

Oh, the mighty power of the Gospel — the 
power of divine love calling us to a new 
life; the power of a perfect example pointing 
the way, and the power of a mighty hope bid- 
ding us remember that after a while — some 
sweet day — we shall be like Him, for we shall 
see Him as he is! Then perfection. 

2. Let it be granted that this power is in 
the Gospel — the power of divine love pleading 
with us to be good, the power of a perfect life 
awakening within us aspirations to be good, 
and the power of a mighty hope proclaiming 

26 



God's Power 

to discouraged men and women the possibility 
of attaining unto this goodness. But of what 
avail is power outside ourselves? Of what use 
is the stored-up energy of steam or electricity 
so long as it remains unharnessed and unem- 
ployed? So this pov/er of the Gospel — this 
divine energy that is in the good tidings of 
God — must somehow become power in oin- 
selves^ else the desired result of the power will 
not be secured. How then can this power of 
love become an energizing influence in me? 
How can this perfect life of Christ be con- 
verted into the power of holiness in my living? 
How can this might}^ hope become a real thing 
— no longer something to be talked about, but 
a living, throbbing hope in my own breast? 
In a word, how can the power of the Gospel be 
brought from outside inside? How can it be 
made to work within me in securing my salva- 
tion? The individual salvation of every sinner 
is the end to be secured by this power, and 
since, as we have seen, the power is spiritual 
because of the nature of salvation, it must 
work from within outward. It must become 
power in us. By what means, through what 
agency, can this be accomplished? 

The answer is found in the little phrase, '*to 
every one that believeth.^' Faith is the chan- 
nel of power. It is the electric cord, which by 
establishing connection with the dynamo, con- 

27 



God's Power 

verts the stored-up energy into the active 
power that lights onr rooms and drives our 
cars. I think that the philosophy of this mat- 
ter is not difficult to understand. 

Let it be understood that simple intellectual 
belief will not, cannot secure for us the salva- 
tion sought. It cannot bring the power of the 
Gospel to work with us. Intellectual belief 
leaves the Gospel outside us practically. We 
have accepted as true certain propositions. 
They have not been converted into power — 
working within us. 

Hence the faith of the Gospel — the faith en- 
joined as the means of securing salvation — is 
the faith of the heart. ^'With the heart man 
believeth unto righteousness." That is, with 
the whole inner man w^e believe. We do not 
simply accept as true the Gospel, giving our 
mental assent to its truthfulness, but the 
w^hole inner man accepts it — the affections 
leadinor us to love and desire the blessino^s it 
offers and the life it presents; our conscience 
pressing upon us the obligation to do wdiatever 
that Gospel enjoins; our will resolving to 
execute all that is required of us. The whole 
inner man believes. Such belief necessarily 
involves action — obedience. If we believe unth 
the heart that God loves us, then our affections 
give back an answering love; our conscience 
says we ought to recognize such love by any 

28 



God's Power 

obedience which maybe required; our will says, 
** Whatsoever he saith unto us, we will do it." 

So of the life that is revealed. And so of the 
hope that is offered. It becomes real through 
obedience — not the primary obedience of bap- 
tism alone, but a lifetime obedience as well. 

Thus salvation is the result. This faith — 
laying hold of affections, conscience, will — 
leads us to obey the Lord Jesus Christ. Our 
hearts are softened by this great love, and we 
love in return; the beautiful life of Christ to 
which we have been called so appeals to us by 
its attractiveness and by the inspirations of this 
love that we come to hate sin and turn from it 
in sincere repentance; our will is laid hold of 
and we willingly and cheerfully render the 
obedience in baptism which our Lord enjoins. 
And thus we are brought into that relation to 
God in which he can forgive us. We are par- 
doned. Then this faith, still embracing the 
whole man, brings our affections, our con- 
science and our will into the work of making 
the life of Christ our own, and thus being de- 
livered every day from the evil. 

And all along we have this mighty hope of 
complete conquest cheering us and making us 
to press forward with renewed energy and zeal 
to the attainment of complete perfection. 

Through faith then the power of the Gospel 
— the power of love, the power of holiness, the 

29 



God's Power 

power of hope — becomes power in ourselves, 
by leading us to obey Christ in all of his ap- 
pointments and to follow him to the end of our 
days. 

30 



Ill 

THE NATURAL MAN AND THE 
SPIRITUAL MAN 

Now the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of 
God: for they are foolishness unto him; and he cannot know 
them, because they are spiritually judged. — 1 COR. 2; 14. 

Who is the '^natural man'' of our text? 
Who is the '^spiritual man"? Says this writer 
in another connection: * 'There is a natural 
man and there is a spiritual man" — not that 
there are two distinct individuals, one natural 
and the other spiritual, but that each individ- 
ual is part natural and part spiritual. Each 
one of us has faculties and powers which have 
to do with earthly things — with the things of 
time and space. That is the part of us which 
is denominated the ' 'natural man." This is 
the man who operates through the five senses, 
or who will accept as true only that which is 
demonstrable to the intellect. He is the man 
who receives as real only that of which the 
senses take cognizance, or which can be put in 
the logical forms of human thought. On the 
other hand, each of us has faculties and powers 
that enable him to recognize and appropriate 
heavenly things — ''the things of the Spirit of 

31 



The Natural Man and the Spiritual Man 

God/' This part of us is denominated the 
^^spiritual man/' This is the man who loves 
and worships, who sees the invisible, who 
''bears the image of the heavenly," to whom 
knowledge comes through faith and hope and 
love — to whom unseen beauty is as real as that 
which can take form and outline on the 
painter's canvas, to whom God and Christ and 
heaven and righteousness are as much certain- 
ties as mountains and oceans are to the physi- 
cal eye or a theorem of geometry to the logical 
intellect. If, as Paul asserts, man is composed 
of body, soul and spirit, then the natural man 
would embrace all that part of us which is not 
spiritual — in other words, the body with its 
physical senses, and the soul or intellect, that 
in the fulfillment of its office need deal only 
with the physical phenomena of the universe. 
The spiritual man claims as his territory all the 
vast realm of the affections and aspirations — 
that vast territory where rule and reign the in- 
visible forces of righteousness — that region of 
highest reality, to which we give the name of 
religion. 

Let us remember that the spiritual nature is 
not the exclusive possession of the chosen few. 
It is the common inheritance of the race. The 
spiritual man uses the spiritual nature, culti- 
vates it, refuses to treat it as non-existent, 
feeds it with such food as will make it grow, 

3>Z 



The Natural Man and the Spiritual Man 

recognizes it to be as truly a part of himself 
as his body or his intellectual faculties; where- 
as the natural man lives as though he had no 
other possession than body and mind — no other 
faculties than those which have to do with the 
physical universe, no other powers than those 
which are bounded by the limitations of time 
and space. His only true self, his immortal 
self, his real self, upon which is stamped the 
image of God, is neglected or ignored. The 
world of spirit is for him non-existent. He 
simply fails to exercise the spiritual part of 
him and suffers, inevitably, the consequence. 

I. Consider, then, the disadvantages and 
deprivations of the *' natural man," the loss 
which is not arbitrary, but inevitable. 

(a) *'He receiveth not the things of the 
Spirit of God." What a magnificently com- 
prehensive declaration is this — '^the things of 
the Spirit of God'M The power of God as dis- 
played in the divine self-sacrifice; the wisdom 
of God in using the simple story of love to win 
the world of humanity to righteousness; the 
depth of divine meaning hidden in an ignoble 
cross; the divinity and glory of suffering love; 
the omnipotence of meekness and forgiveness, 
as exemplified by a dying Saviour — these are 
some of '^the things of the Spirit of God'' 
which the ''natural man receiveth not." This 
is the ''wisdom not of this world," the wisdom 
3 ^3 



The Natural Man and the Spiritual Man 

*' which God ordained before the world unto 
our glory, which none of the princes of this 
world knew; for had they known it, they would 
not have crucified the Lord of glory/' Being 
^'natural men'' — men who failed to recognize 
that they had any spiritual nature — men who 
had to do with the glittering externals of office 
and the strength of physical force — they were 
unfitted to receive spiritual things. The 
**princes of this world," through neglect of 
the spiritual self, failed to realize their gracious 
opportunity. They crucified the ^^Lord of 
glory'' because being spiritually blind, ignor- 
ing the power of the human spirit to see invis- 
ible beauty, and using only the inferior part of 
their being, they could *'see in him no form or 
comeliness." And so the history of the world 
shows that the '^natural man" — the man who 
uses only his physical senses or his logical in- 
tellect — has always failed to ^^ receive the 
things of the Spirit of God"— all the high, 
beautiful and divine realities of religion. How 
poverty-stricken becomes his nature! 

(b) Not only so; these * ^things of the 
Spirit of God" are foolishness to the '^natural 
man." He not only does not receive them, 
but they are foolishness. The cultivated 
Greek, ignoring his spirit, and giving atten- 
tion to the body and intellect, said: *^We have 
an eye that can scan the beautiful in form and 

34 



The Natural Man and the Spiritual Man 

figure. Carve for us a statue, or glorify your 
canvas with an immortal painting that we can 
appreciate. Or deliver for us an oration, giv- 
ing attention to ^excellency of speech' and to 
strength of reasoning — that is what we want — 
the 'wisdom of words.' That appeals to the 
intellect. But this 'preaching of the cross' — 
this telling us of the divine love, and sacrifice, 
and forgiveness, and meekness, and patience — 
that is foolishness. This talk of immortality 
and eternal life — that is beyond us, that is out 
of our realm — it is foolishness." So it has 
ever been. The ''natural man," living in the 
realm of the natural, always looks upon the 
spiritual as foolishness. Hence the ridicule to 
which Christianity has been subjected by the 
coarse and vulgar minds of the world; hence 
the sneer and cool contempt of your man of 
science, who thinks that there can be nothing 
for the heart which the cold intellect can not 
give, and hence the condescending smile wnth 
which your man of the world receives any ref- 
erence to the verities of religion. Alas! he does 
not realize that it is "foolishness" to him, be- 
cause he has starved his own spirit — because 
he himself is in an abnormal state — with keen 
physical senses, and perhaps a cultivated mind, 
but with the spiritual part of him smothered, 
(c) But now consider that the "natural 
man" can not receive these things. Says the 

35 



The Natural Man and the Spiritual Man 

writer: ''He cannot know them, because they 
are spiritually judged." That is a simple prop- 
osition. There are certain things with which 
the natural man has to do, and certain things 
with which the spiritual man has to do. The 
natural man, with the faculties which belong 
to him, simply can not see the things which 
are apparent to the spiritual man, using the 
power which is inherent in his spirit. You 
can not see with your ear, or hear with your 
eye. Xo more can you discern spiritual things 
with the eve of sense or the loodcal intellect. 
They are to be spiritually judged. You are to 
see them and know them through the medium 
of your spirit. This is what the apostle says: 
''Eye hath not seen, ear hath not heard, neith- 
er hath it entered into the heart of man [his 
merely intellectual nature] the things which 
God hath prepared for those that love him.'* 
These spiritual things do not belong to the 
region of the senses; they do not belong to the 
region of mathematics — they are known to love, 
the organ of spiritual knowledge. Until one 
gives attention to the cultivation of his spirit 
— until he recognizes that he has a spiritual 
part as well as a natural part — he not only does 
not receive the things of the Spirit of God, but 
he can not receive them. He is using wrong 
instruments. He is tr^-ing to weigh a thought 



36 



The Natural Man and the Spiritual Man 

with scales, or to measure an aspiration with 
a yard-stick. 

2. But now turn to consider some of the 
characteristics of the spiritual man and the 
richness of life involved in his high position. 

(a) First, he is a loving man. That which 
''eye hath not seen" and ''ear hath not heard," 
and thought fastened upon material things 
"hath not conceived," that God "hath re- 
vealed" unto those that love Him. It is a 
present revelation which love claims. Love is 
the organ of the spirit, and sees God who is 
love. The loving spirit, because it loves, finds 
love as the central thought of the universe — 
love as the heart of the Gospel, love as the 
law of life, love victorious over death. Our 
physical senses can not secure for us this reve- 
lation, nor can the logical intellect secure this 
revelation. "The understanding is that by 
which a man becomes a mere logician and a 
mere rhetorician, it is simply that by which he 
reasons from the impressions received through 
the senses. I can not prove the being of a 
God, if by proof I mean that addressed to the 
understanding. I can not prove to any man 
that there is a sun, unless he has an eye to see 
it, or that good is better than evil, unless there 
is a correspondence in his own being to the 
eternal difference between them. God must be 
felt by the heart, intuitively perceived by the 

37 



The Natural Man and the Spiritual Man 

spirit, before he can be demonstrated to the 
understanding. If a man does not feel in 
every fibre of his heart a divine presence, I can 
not prove that it is there, or anywhere else. 
For the evidence of the senses can never be 
more certain than the conviction of the spirit." 
*'He that loveth is born of God and knoweth 
God." To him who is pure, purity is a real- 
ity; to him who loves, God is a reality. Self- 
sacrifice, forgiveness, obedience, all the fruits 
of love, and all the joys of love, are realities, 
(b) He is a profound man. ''For the Spirit 
searcheth all things; yea, the deep things of 
God," and ''we have received the Spirit which 
is of God, that w^e might know the things that 
are freely given unto us of God." The senses 
have to do with the surface of things. The 
understanding has to do with the natural, com- 
municated by the senses, and hence is super- 
ficial — dealing only with physical phenomena. 
It may explore the heavens; it may weigh the 
stars; it may make the earth yield its secrets; 
but so long as it limits itself to the natural 
world or worlds, it is superficial. The Spirit 
knows God — the divine life — which is under- 
neath all the manifestations we behold. The 
Spirit finds God, and the deep truths that are 
associated with God. It rejoices in his love; it 
worships before his holiness; it is awed into 
adoration before his cross; it recognizes his 

38 



The Natural Man and the Spiritual Man 

benevolence and breaks forth into gratitude; it 
shares his peace; it partakes of his nature. 
*^It knows the things that are freely given unto 
us of God." Oh, what an uplift! What dig- 
nity these deep things of God, known only to 
the spiritual man, give to life! There is the 
earth's surface, and then deeper the cold, dark, 
cheerless soil, and then deeper the central fire. 
So there is the superficial view of life — the 
senses; the puzzled view of the philosopher, 
who uses only his logical faculties; the deepest 
view of all, that which discovers the heart of 
the universe — the central fire — God and the 
things of God. 

(c) The spiritual man is comprehensive in 
his activities and sympathies and life. ''He 
that is spiritual judgeth all things." He does 
not forget that he has a body. He uses his 
senses, and so he can examine all the things 
with which eye and ear have to do. He does 
not forget that he has an intellect — an under- 
standing that must and can pass on the phe- 
nomena which come to him through his senses. 
He can be a man of science or he can be a 
philosopher who loves all the forms and pro- 
cesses of thought. But in addition he does not 
forget that he has a spirit, and therefore he 
moves out into a realm that the natural man 
knows not — the realm of spiritual things. He 
judges all that the natural man does — using 

39 



The Natural Man and the Spiritual Man 

the powers of the natural man. He can go 
with him into all his activities of matter and 
mind. Only he goes farther — and into this 
further realm into which he goes the natural 
man can not come. ''Here he is judged of no 
man.'' Only the spiritual man can enter here, 
and the natural man's judgment is of no avail. 
Simply because he can not judge in this realm, 
the natural man looks upon this spiritual life 
as foolishness. It is to him strange and unac- 
countable. It seems to him weak and insipid. 
But to the spiritual man himself, how easy, 
how natural, how beautiful this whole spiritual 
life is! It seems to him monstrous that any 
man should forget that he has a spirit, and 
that by cultivating it he can come into a 
sphere where ''all things are new." Cultivate 
the spirit. It is the "high place that shrines 
God's image." It is the kingly part of us, and 
body and soul must recognize its sovereignty. 



40 



IV 
A SOUL-BATTLE 

Surely God is g-ood to Israel, 

Even to such as are pure in heart. — Psalm 73:1. 

Our text records the conviction of a soul 
victorious over doubt — a conviction reached 
through doubt. After a hard- fought battle in 
which he declares ''my feet were almost gone, 
my steps had well-nigh slipped" — a spiritual 
conflict involving the very foundation of his 
faith — he stands at last triumphant over his 
fears and serene in his recovered faith. 
''Truly God is good to Israel." There is no 
longer any question. At last assurance has 
been gained. He is no longer on the great, 
rolling, tumultuous sea of uncertainty; he has 
at last planted his feet on the rock. The 
description given of another's experience most 
accurately portrays the tremendous soul-conflict 
which the writer of the psahn undergoes and 
which he so clearly and vividly brings before 
us in the succeeding verses. "He had been 
glad in the Beautiful House and seen the 
Delectable Mountains from afar; he had gone 
down the hill with enthusiasm and pleasant 
thoughts, but Apollyoii met him in the valley 

41 



A Soul-Battle 

and broken by the battle, but unsubdued, he 
walked in tenfold gloom through the valley of 
the shadow of death, with the fiends whisper- 
ing dark doubts in his ears, till he half be- 
lieved them to be his own — stumbling and 
fainting, but ever going onward — till at last 
emerging victorious, he went up upon the hills 
to see with clearer vision than before through 
the glass of Faith the shining of the Celestial 
City." 

Only the man who has gone through such an 
experience can understand its bitterness, and 
the thrill which comes with emancipation. 
The psalmist describes his ov/n suffering, w^hen 
he says, ''My heart was grieved and I was 
pricked in my veins." The honest doubter 
cannot be happy, and when one's doubt in- 
volves something so vital as the goodness of 
God — truly his wretchedness cannot be put in 
words. Better that God should not be at all 
than that he should not be good. One would 
be happier to believe that there is no God 
rather than believe that he lives only to out- 
rage one's moral nature. If he be not good, 
his love is only a name; his justice is but an 
arbitrary exercise of sovereign will; his power 
is that of a demon. His goodness alone is the 
guarantee of safety for his children. "Tell me 
thy name" is the deepest question of the soul — 



42 



A Soul-Battle 

is it Force, Chance, Destiny or Love? Is God 
good? 

It was the goodness of God which the 
Psalmist doubted. The very foundation was 
involved. The grounds of his doubt have 
always been in the world, and so his doubt has 
been shared by thousands of others. It is the 
old question — ^^If God is good, why does he 
seemingly approve evil, by permitting the 
prosperity of the wicked?" The psalmist 
looks out upon the world and his bleared vision 
beholds the "prosperity of the wicked." He 
does not see clearly, as he afterwards admits. 
But with his imperfect vision, it seems to him 
that the wicked die easier than the righteous — 
'^ there are no bands in their death; their 
strength is firm." ''They are not in trouble 
as other men; neither are they plagued like 
other men." They are proud and violent, and 
yet they prosper — ''their eyes stand out with 
fatness; they have more than heart could 
wish." They uphold oppression and say, 
"How doth God know? And is there knowl- 
edge in the most High?" — and yet they in- 
crease in riches. And so this tempest-tossed 
soul concludes that goodness has no special 
divine favor and that it is not worth one's 
while to try to be good. "Verily I have 
cleansed my heart in vain." "I have been," 
he goes on in the bitterness of his complaint, 

43 



A Soul-Battle 



U 



I have been plagued all the day long and 
chastened every morning.-' Where is the use 
of being good? Where is there any proof that 
God is good? * 'Virtue in distress and vice in 
triumph make atheists of mankind." Suc- 
cessful wickedness, and suffering righteous- 
ness — who of us has not at times had our dark 
and despondent moods when we thought of this 
moral paradox? If God is good — why does 
oppression sit upon a throne, while right so 
often goes begging in the streets? Why does 
Dives live in luxury and Lazarus in wretched- 
ness? It was such questioning as this which 
bred his doubts and carried him almost into 
the gloom of despair. Our text announces his 
victory, and we shall consider in a moment the 
basis of his recovered faith. 

Before passing to the psalmist's antidote, 
there are two things suggested in this expe- 
rience that we may do well to remember. 

(a) The first is that honest doubt is not 
sinful. The psalmist condemns himself as 
''foolish and ignorant and brutish,'' but he 
adds, "Nevertheless I am continually with 
thee: thou hast holden me by my right hand." 
Surely God does not forsake a man in such an 
experience! It is precisely then that man most 
needs God. Doubt of God's goodness is fool- 
ish, short-sighted — but if it comes to a man 
with the force of a crushing conviction, it is 

44 



A Soul-Battle 

not criminal. Only, let him make a manly 
fight. The mists will presently be dissipated, 
and then comes sunshine. 

(b) The second thing is, don't talk about 
your doubts. ^'If I say — I will speak thus: be- 
hold I should offend against the generation of 
thy children." Fight your own battle. Tell 
men what you believe. They have plenty of 
doubts of their own. Don't offend against the 
generation of God's children. 

2. Now consider the grounds on which the 
conviction of our text is based and his reason- 
ing until assurance comes. 

(i) These doubts continued with him, he 
says, * 'until I went into the sanctuary of God." 
Here, in his meditation, he begins to see clear- 
ly. He begins to look at those things which 
are not seen — going beneath the surface. 
Shortness of vision was his trouble. And then 
he discovers — 

(a) That the wicked do not find happiness 
with their prosperity. Outwardly they seem 
to be happy, but the fact is that they are in 
* 'slippery places." They have no firm footing 
— no sense of security — and hence no peace. 
God has put the rebuke of wickedness into 
wickedness itself. Wickedness carries its own 
sting. ''There is no peace to the wicked, 
saith my God." "They are like the troubled 
sea when it can not rest." Their prosperity is 

45 



A Soul-Battle 

no evidence of God's approval; their wretched- 
ness is the stamp of his disapproval. Good- 
ness only brings joy, and thus is crowned by 
the Almighty. 

(b) Wickedness is short-lived. There is 
prosperity for a day — yes; but wickedness is 
doomed. '^How are they brought into desola- 
tion as in a moment! They are utterly con- 
sumed with terrors. '^ '^The good word lasts 
forever; the impure word can only buoy itself 
in the gross gas that now envelops us, and will 
sink altogether to ground as that v/orks itself 
clear in the everlasting effort of God." 

'^Towards an eternal center of right and 
nobleness and of that only is all this confusion 
tending. We already know whither it is all 
tending, what will have victory, what will 
have none. The heaviest will reach the cen- 
ter." Wickedness is doomed. It may have 
its bonfires and its ringing bells — it must go 
down. Righteousness endures forever. ^'For 
yet a little while, and the wicked shall not be; 
yea thou shalt diligently consider his place, 
and it shall not be. But the meek shall in- 
herit the earth and shall delight themselves in 
the abundance of peace." God has stamped 
his approval on goodness by making it ever- 
lasting. 

(c) Hence the wicked are self-deceived. 
The psalmist expresses it, '^As a dream when 

46 



A Soul-Battle 

oneawaketh." They are dreaming of peace, 
when destruction standeth at the door. They 
are saying peace, peace — when there is no 
peace. They are as a city that has been mined 
— in a moment explosion and death come. 

(d) Finally all doubt is dissipated, and the 
mists flee a\Yayj by considering the portion 
of the righteous. Let it be granted that he 
has suffering — he has something better than 
riches— God. *'Whom have I in heaven but 
thee? And there is none upon earth that I 
desire beside thee. My flesh and my heart 
faileth, but God is the strength of my heart 
and my portion forever." 

The reward of righteousness is not material, 
but spiritual; not gold, but God. This is the 
promise, the fulfillment of which means our 
unshaken faith in the goodness of God. 

And through such reasonings the tempest- 
tossed soul at last finds anchor in the haven of 
our text. Of the good voice, finally victorious, 
Tennyson sings — 

**So heavenly-toned, that in that hour 
From out my sullen heart a power 
Broke like the rainbow from the shower — 

"To feel, although no tongue can prove, 
That every cloud that spreads above 
And veileth love, itself is love." 



47 



V 

CHRIST'S TREATMENT OF DOUBT, 
OR FAITH TRIUMPHANT 

I WISH it to be understood that I am 
speaking of doubt as contradistinguished from 
infidelity. Infidelity is the denial of the super- 
natural; doubt is mental uncertainty. The 
former is aggressive and defiant, the latter is 
passive and inquisitive; the former declares, 
**There is no God," the latter asks, *Ts there 
a God?" Infidelity regards the case as settled, 
doubt is open to conviction. The one is a 
hardened mental and spiritual condition; the 
other is often the precursor of faith. This dis- 
tinction should be borne in mind while I quote 
to you the following statement from a book 
of Dr. Henry Van Dyke: 

*'As soon as we step out of the theological 
circle into the broad field of general reading, 
we see that we are living in an age of doubt. 
I do not mean to say that this is the only fea- 
ture in the physiognomy of the age. It has 
many other aspects, from any one of which we 
might pick a name. From the material side, 
we might call it an age of progress; from the 
intellectual side, an age of science; from the 
medical side, an age of hysteria; from the 

48 



Christ's Treatment of Doubt 

political side, an age of democracy, from the 
commercial side, an age of advertisement; from 
the social side, an age of publicomania. But 
looking at it from the spiritual side, which is 
the preacher's point of view, and considering 
that interior life to which every proclamation 
of a gospel must be addressed, beyond a doubt 
it stands confessed as a doubting age.' ^ It is 
not an age of infidelity, but an age of question- 
ing. Nothing is too sacred for examination. 
Is there a God? Is the soul anything more 
than '^a certain secretion of the gray matter in 
the brain"? Is there a life beyond death? 
*'The age stands in doubt," says the author 
already mentioned. ^'Its coat-of-arms is an 
interrogation point rampant above three bish- 
ops dormant, and its motto is Query." The 
literature of the age is proof of its doubt. Not 
to mention the greater writers like Huxley and 
Tyndall — not to enter the realm of poetry, 
**In how many lighter novels of the day," it 
has been asked, */do we find any recognition, 
even between the lines, of the influence which 
the idea of God or its absence, the practice of 
prayer or its neglect, actually exercises upon 
the character and conduct of men?" In speak- 
ing of Christ's treatment of doubt I shall refer 
to Thomas, the doubter in the apostolic school, 
and his example, as well, furnishes two phases, 
at least, of the doubt of our own age, which 
4 49 



Christ's Treatment of Doubt 

redeems it from hard infidelity and gives prom- 
ise of its final emergence into faith. 

For the most part, it has been said, modern 
doubt shows a sad and pain-drawn face, 
heavy with grief and dark with apprehension. 
The case of Thomas illustrates this hopeful 
phase of doubt. On the evening of the day 
when Jesus rose from the dead, the Disciples 
were together, and the risen Lord appeared 
unto them. Thomas was absent. He did not 
believe that Jesus had risen, and so in solitude 
he nursed his grief. There w^as no more 
wretched man than Thomas. He did not glory 
in his unbelief; he was utterly miserable. He 
longed to believe. There is always hope in this 
suffering. *'The great Companion is dead," 
says one, but the sentence is a sigh of inex- 
pressible regret. The man who jests about his 
doubts, has never truly thought; the man 
whose doubts bring to him the pain of loss is 
on his way to faith. Is there any loss compar- 
able to the loss of faith? No earnest soul can 
be satisfied until firm footing has once again 
been secured. 

Another phase in the doubt of Thomas was 
its refusal to be divorced from service. On one 
occasion, when Jesus was determined to face 
the dangers which awaited him in Judea on his 
journey to Bethany, Thomas said: ''Let us 
also go that we may die with him." He did 

50 



Christ's Treatment of Doubt 

not believe his Master possessed power to 
defend himself, yet, having no buoyant faith, 
he was yet willing to die. This is the 
spirit to-day of very much of the independ- 
ent work in the interest of better social con- 
ditions. Men are saying, ^^We do not believe 
the old dogmas; we do not believe the Chris- 
tian argument any longer; but one thing is 
sure, we are here in the midst of sin and 
sorrow, let us lend a hand." And here again 
is hope, for the man who holds fast to service 
will presently be driven to faith as a necessity; 
for he Vv^ill find that his own arm is too short to 
save, and his own strength is insignificant in 
dealing with his problems. Sin sometimes 
brings about the same result, for the sinner 
finds that sin is weakness, and that the old 
faith alone can sustain him in re-conquering the 
lost territory of his soul. Now observe Christ's 
treatment of doubt: He condemns formalism, 
hypocrisy, self-conceited piety and that irre- 
sponsiveness and hardness of heart which closed 
its eyes and shut its ears to truth; but not hon- 
est doubt. Better doubt than indifference. The 
man who doubts is at least interested enough 
to think. 

Jesus offers himself as the solution of doubt. 
When Thomas asked concerning our Lord's 
departure from earth, ^^We know not whither 
thou goest, and how can we know the way?" 

51 



Christ's Treatment of Doubt 

Jesus gave no geographical answer. This 
mind of Thomas demanded a sign-board with 
a finger pointing in the direction he must go. 
It was a materialistic challenge. Jesus makes 
answer: '^I am the way, the truth, the life." 
Virtually he says, *'You know not what you 
ask. I am not speaking of territory in terms 
of miles, but of spiritual residence. The way 
is my life." 

There are three great questions about which 
modern doubt hovers — questions that are vital 
and fundamental. They go deeper than the 
dogmas of the churches. These questions are: 
Is there a spiritual world? Is there a God? 
Is there a future life? To each of these ques- 
tions Jesus offers himself as answer. 

Is there a spiritual world — a world of 
thought, feeling, love, unselfishness? There 
are those who tell us that nothing exists but 
matter and that the soul itself is nothing more 
than *'the secretion of gray matter." Conse- 
quently, love is nothing more than a material 
product — a resultant of mere physical processes. 

Jesus is himself the proof of this spiritual 
world. He says: **I come from the Father." 
He attributed his love, his unselfishness — his 
character, to a divine source — a source other 
than matter. And the proof is in the character 
itself. It is as though the wind should say: 
'^I come from the land of flowers and the proof 

52 



Christ^s Treatment of Doubt 

is in the fragrance I bear." Or the fire: ^*I 
come from the sun and the proof is in the heat 
I bear." So Jesus says: *'I come from God — 
from a world other than this earthly one, and 
the proof is in the atmosphere of that world I 
bring with me. It is found in the warmth and 
fragrance that are in my life." If there be no 
flower garden, then fragrance is a delusion; if 
there be no sun, then heat is a fancy; if there 
be no spiritual world, then this heavenly fra- 
grance and warmth which Christ brought with 
him is a dream. 

Can it be a dream? Jesus says: ''I am the 
way" — the way to the realization of the actual- 
ity of this spiritual world. There is that in 
every man which can test the actuality of this 
world. ^^Judge ye out of your own selves what 
is right!" '^If any man will to do his will, he 
shall know of the doctrine whether it be of God 
or whether I speak of myself." In other 
words, live this Christ life and ye shall verify 
the Christ-experience — the reality of a spirit- 
ual world. Be pure and you shall know there is 
purity. Be true and you shall know there is truth. 

Is there a God? Truly this is the deepest of 
questions. Allen would have it that *'it is the 
prodding of the evening midge for its opinion 
of the polar star." Rather we should say it is 
the cry of a child for the knowledge of its 
father. I stop not to consider the many argu- 

53 



Christ's Treatment of Doubt 

ments advanced in proof of the existence of 
God. Jesus offers himself as the answer. *'I 
am the truth'' of God. If the character of 
Christ is not itself proof of the existence of 
God, then you can have effulgence without a 
sun, a smile without a face, a character with- 
out a personality. That character is a mani- 
festation of God as surely as heat is a mani- 
festation of fire. There can be no other ex- 
planation. In other words, Jesus offers us the 
proof of God's existence in terms of life and 
experience. ^^I am the truth." Be like me 
and 3''ou shall know the truth in your own con- 
scious experience. 

**Is there a future life?" Jesus offers him- 
self again as proof. '^I am the life." 

He declared this life. *'He that believeth 
in me shall never die." This testimony is 
worth just as much as our faith in his word is 
worth. Does his character justify our confidence? 

He reveals the nature of this life. It is a 
life of love and service and purity — not simple 
existence. 

He offers the proof of its actuality in his 
own resurrection from the dead. The case of 
Thomas is only one of the many proofs of this 
transcendent fact. 

In the case of Thomas we behold the trans- 
figuration of doubt. It passes into adoration 
and worship. Thomas was convinced by the 

54 



Christ's Treatment of Doubt 

crucifixion marks of the resurrection of Jesus; 
the identity of the man who was now before 
him and the man whom he knew to have been 
crucified and buried was clearly established. 
So far the intellect only is involved. It is a 
mere matter of conviction. But in a moment 
the stickler for proofs, under the spell of this 
Master, whom he had mourned as dead, be- 
comes the ardent worshiper. **My Lord and 
my God!" is the cry of his adoring soul. In 
our Lord's treatment of the doubt of Thomas 
we seem to be taught the end and purpose of 
faith. It is of no avail that men be convinced 
of the existence of God if they are not led to 
bow before him as God. Intellectual conviction 
concerning the divinity of Christ must bring 
the soul to the recognition of his authority as 
Lord; to lead men out of doubt into conviction 
is not to better them unless the conviction 
shall bring them before the sacred shrine as 
servants and worshippers. Logic must ever be 
the handmaid of life, else the pursuit of truth 
is only a pleasurable mental exercise, with no 
end or aim. What is the aim of your demand 
for proofs? Is it simple mental satisfaction? 
Then it is not worth your while. Is it that 
your life may be glorified by worship, service 
and sacrifice? Then the very longing itself 
will prove the pathway to light. 



55 



VI 

EASTER HOPES 

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which 
according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a 
lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to 
an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, and that fadeth not 
away, reserved in heaven for you. — 1 Peter 1:3, 4. 

The: text itself is an argument. It expresses 
a change in the minds of the disciples from 
despondency to hope, from gloom to joy, from 
doubt to faith. If there be no adequate cause 
to explain this change, a psychological miracle 
has been wrought without reason. 

The resurrection of our I^ord alone meets 
the exigencies of the problem. That is the 
explanation which the disciples themselves 
give. Such an occurrence is absolutely neces- 
sary to explain this marked transition from 
the deepest despondency to a faith and hope 
which welcomed persecution and death itself. 
It was the birth of the world's new hope. 

Consider some of the elements of this hope. 
Its keynote is victory. *^0 death, where is 
thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? 
Thanks be unto God who giveth us the victory 
through our Lord Jesus Christ." That is the 

meaning of Easter. Let the bells ring. Let 

56 



Easter Hopes 

the flowers breathe their fragrance. Let music 
float out in inspiring strains. Our Lord hath 
triumphed over death and hath given to us the 
rich assurance that we, too, may be conquerors. 

There is also involved the hope of the final 
victory of holiness. It was not possible that 
**he should be holden of death," because holi- 
ness cannot be kept in any sepulcher. **Thou 
wilt not suffer thy holy one to see corruption." 
It was the power of holiness that raised Jesus 
from the dead, and by this token we are led to 
believe that holiness the day will win. It has 
its temporary defeats, but it is unconquerable. 
On every field of conflict where wages the 
battle between right and wrong, the banner of 
Christ's holiness shall yet float victoriously. 
This elemental principle will burst every grave 
in which it may be temporarily buried. It will 
ride over every foe which stands in the path of 
its victorious march. Clothed with this holi- 
ness we are endued with the power which 
raised Christ from the dead and which shall 
also quicken our mortal bodies, and which in 
its very nature is irresistible and incapable of 
permanent defeat. 

Furthermore, there is involved in this hope 
the deep desire and the earnest expectation 
that we shall meet the loved ones gone before, 
and shall one day be presented to the illustrious 
dead of all the ages. They are living sonie- 

57 



Easter Hopes 

where in the far away, and because they live 
we cherish the hope that when we pass hence 
we shall greet them. This is part of the glad- 
ness of Easter. *'We sorrow not as those who 
have no hope." This is the reason we bring 
our flowers and our songs and our loud halle- 
lujahs. Our dead are not shut up in any 
sepulcher. They enjoy the liberty of life. 

" Those we call the dead 
Are breathers of an ampler day, 
For ever nobler ends." 

And so this love in our hearts for them — this 
love that we feel to be undying — leads us to 
think of the joyous day of reunion. 

Through this hope, again, we rest in the 
assurance of realized possibilites. If man can- 
not fix his soul in the conviction of immortal- 
ity, then he alone of all God's creation strikes 
the note of incompleteness. The day fulfills 
itself in the dawn; the bud in the flower, the 
seed in the harvest, the river in the sea. But 
no man has ever lived — no matter how long his 
life — whose desires, aspirations and intuitions 
could find fulfilment in time. Life is too short. 
We do but just begin to develop here, and if 
there be no future life, man alone will be the 
great exception to the universal law which 
gives to every thing and being an opportunity 
to realize its life. His broken song shall yet 
round itself out into a glorious melody. His 

58 



Easter Hopes 

highest dreams shall yet come true. His soar- 
ing imagination shall yet find that its loftiest 
flights have not transcended reality. 

" Here sits he, shaping wings to fly. 
His heart forebodes a mystery, 
He names the name Eternity." 

Christ's resurrection is the answer to this 
his foreboding, and the v/ings he is shaping 
will find ample scope for their exercise. 

Our text tells us that we have been begotten 
again unto a living hope. It is living in its 
vividness and intensity. The world has ever 
entertained the hope of immortality, but not 
until the resurrection of Christ did it become 
clear and luminous. Prior to this time it was 
as the twilight, dim and uncertain. The glo- 
rious and full light of the sun flooding the earth 
with brightness was wanting. Now the dawn 
has given place to the day. It is sunrise in 
the world. The green grass is bediamonded 
by its light; the waters mirror back its glory; 
the flowers are tinted by its beauty, and the 
orchestra of nature under its inspiration is 
pouring forth such melodious and triumphant 
strains as might almost make the angels 
envious. There is light and warmth and 
beauty for all the sons of men, who no longer 
cherish this hope as a dream, but as a convic- 
tion founded on the sure word of promise — 
**Because I live, ye shall live also." 

This hope shows itself to be living in that it 
59 



Easter Hopes 

has energized every department of life and of 
thought. As the tree feels the life-giving sap 
flowing through its trunk and making its pres- 
ence known in every branch and twig and leaf, 
so the world's civilization has grown and ex- 
panded and blossomed as it has yielded itself to 
this warm current of hope flowing through 
every vein and artery of its many-sided life. It 
has given to literature a strength and virility it 
never knew in those days, **when the skies 
were ashen and sober, and the leaves were 
crisped and sere." Poetry without this hope 
is a wail — a beautiful utterance with no throb- 
bing heart to take away its chill; a frozen 
angel with no power to soar and sing. As 
representative of such poetry take these lines: 

**From too much love of. living, 
From hope and fear set free, 

We thank with brief thanksgiving whatever gods may be, 
That no life lives forever, 
That dead men rise up never, 
That e'en the weariest river winds somewhere to the sea." 

Over against this lugubrious plaint, this 
moan of a soul that feels ^'uo bright shoots of 
everlastingness" to startle it from its lethargy, 
hear these lines that are touched by the light 
of immortality: 

"The year's at the spring, 
And day's at the dawn, 
Morning's at seven. 
The hillside's dew-pearled, 
The lark's on the wing. 
The snail's on the thorn, 
God's in his heaven. 
All's right with the world." 
60 



Easter Hopes 

Do you not feel the difference? So again to 
the Christian poet the evening star that glori- 
fies the night is the new-risen morning star 
that greets the day. There is no death. The 
setting star is the rising star. It is this spirit 
of hope that has passed into assurance that 
gives to our highest poetry its inspiration and 
power. 

This mighty hope throbs and thrills in the 
great music of the world. Sometimes it 
breathes upon us in some sweet strain, quiet 
and gentle as '^the breath of summer flowers," 
telling of its hope timidly, but no less certainly. 
Again it breaks forth into triumphant utter- 
ance, as in HandePs grand Hallelujah chorus, 
as though it sought to fill every nook and cor- 
ner of creation with its tumultuous joy. As 
another has said: *'Such music lifts us up and 
restores in us the sublime consciousness of our 
own immortality. For it is in listening to 
sweet and noble strains of music that we feel 
uplifted, raised above ourselves. We move 
about in worlds not realized, we breathe a 
higher air, we seem to have seen white pres- 
ences among the hills." 

I need not speak of this hope as energizing 
life and character. We have felt 'Hhe power 
of an endless life" in our thoughts, which 
'^pierce the night like stars"; in our aspira- 
tions, which proclaim that we were made for 

61 



Easter Hopes 

another world than this; in our dissatisfaction 
with the perishable, which tells us we were not 
born to die. We have recognized the energy 
of this hope in its sustaining influence when 
* 'troubles gathered thick and thundered loud." 

And at last when death has stood before us 
demanding the countersign, we have whispered 
''Hope," and passed in serenity the line which 
divides the seen from the unseen. It has 
brought strength to the reformer in his heroic 
enterprise. It has sustained the scholar in his 
proclamation of new and unwelcome truth. It 
has enabled the martyr to meet the lurid glare 
of the flame with the victorious smile of peace- 
ful resignation. And it has strengthened the 
humble sufferer on the bed of death to pass 
from earth with a paean of victory on his lips. 

Truly it is a living and powerful hope. 
Christ has stored away in it the mightiest 
energy in creation- — mightier than all other 
forces, because life is at its heart. ''lyife, for- 
evermore!" 



63 



VII 

MISSIONS: THE CROWNING GLORY OF 
THE CENTURY* 

The) historian of the nineteenth century will 
lead us into a realm where **truth is stranger 
than fiction." The intimations and dreams of 
yesterday have become the realities of to-day. 
The marvelous no longer provokes marvel, and 
the wonderful has grown to be commonplace. 
Nothing surprises; everything is anticipated. 
*'That which man has done is but earnest of 
the things he yet shall do." Gladstone has 
said that the first fifty years of this century 
mark more progress in art, science, invention 
and discovery than the previous five thousand 
years, the next twenty-five more than the pre- 
vious fifty, and the next ten more than the 
previous twenty-five — a century, in short, 
whose achievements are so surpassing that '*we 
must compare it, not with any preceding cen- 
tury or even with the last millennium, but 
with the whole historical period." As we gaze 



♦Address delivered in Music Hall, at the Jubilee Convention, 
Cincinnati, October, 1899. 

63 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

upon its intellectual and material triumphs, 
we are almost led to believe that some magi- 
cian's wand lias produced for us an unreal 
world, or that imagination has created a realm 
all her own, and has named it fact. Science 
has blossomed into tenderness in giving to 
pain-racked humanity antiseptic surgery and 
anaesthetics. Invention has brought from the 
* 'vasty deep'' of speculation the *' railway unit- 
ing distant cities, the steamship uniting distant 
nations, the cable uniting distant continents, 
the telephone uniting friends widely separated, 
the phonograph lending immortality to the 
voice" — to say nothing of minor discoveries 
whose light is only less as ''one star differs 
from another star in glory." History has 
widened her domain until the past of which 
she takes cognizance is no longer marked by 
centuries, but cycles. We are told that "one 
hundred years ago there were no known facts 
concerning history older than those of Greece 
and Rome. Within the present century Egypt, 
Assyria and Babylonia have yielded monu- 
ments containing inscriptions that reach back- 
ward to a period of at least five thousand 
years." To tell the story of the purely intel- 
lectual and material contributions which have 
been made to our civilization during this won- 
derful century would require such knowledge 
as only the special student of this theme could 

64 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

command. It is a story in which there is not 
one dull chapter from preface to appendix — the 
story of man inheriting the earth as he dis- 
covers its secrets, trains its forces, utilizes its 
stored-up energy, and lays under tribute all the 
past of time as incentive to new endeavors and 
greater triumphs. 

Brilliant, however, as have been the intel- 
lectual and material achievements of this cen- 
tnry, they do not constitute its crowning glory. 
All these things, dazzling though they be, may 
coexist with infamy. One has said: ''The pol- 
ished Greeks, the world's masters in the de- 
lights of language and in range of thought, and 
the commanding Romans, overawing the earth 
with their power, were little more than splen- 
did savages, and the age of Louis XIV. of 
France, spanning so long a period of ordinary 
worldly magnificence, thronged by marshals 
bending under military laurels, enlivened by 
the unsurpassed comedies of Moliere, dignified 
by the tragic genius of Corneille, illumined by 
the splendors of Bossuet, is degraded by im- 
moralities which can not be mentioned without 
a blush, by a heartlessness in comparison with 
which the ice of Nova Zembla is warm, and by 
a succession of deeds of injustice not to be 
washed out by the tears of all the recording 
angels in heaven." Civilization is a scepter 
over a limited realm; beyond this it is a broken 
5 65 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

reed. It can give outward respectability, it 
can not redeem. A distinguished writer calls 
attention to one of the pictures on exhibition at 
the World's Fair, representing a savage stand- 
ing on the banks of a stream, anxious, but 
ignorant of how, to cross the flood. **Knowl- 
edge toward the metal at his feet gave the sav- 
age an axe, knowledge toward the tree gave 
him a canoe, knowledge toward the union of 
canoes gave him a boat, knowledge toward the 
wind added sails, knowledge toward fire and 
water gave him the ocean steamer.'' But from 
whence shall come that higher knowledge 
without which his spirit snail remain undevel- 
oped? '^That man is a religious animal has 
assumed the purple among accepted facts." A 
material ci\41ization ignores this fact, and 
therefore its brilliance can only dazzle; it has 
no deliverance for the soul that is ignorant of 
God. Because missions represent the highest 
ministry which man can exercise, and which 
man can receive— the ministrj^ of making God 
known to man — they may be characterized not 
only as the crowning glory of the church, but 
as the crowning glory of the centur)\ They 
are more than a feature of the century; they 
stand forth pre-eminent. As one has truly 
written, ''Missions have come into view, dur- 
ing this centur\', like one of those vast conti- 
nental upheavals in old geological times, when 

66 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

out of the mists and vapors and submerging 
waters a nev/ world has slowly lifted into 
light." They bring before us a work which 
combines within itself marvels greater than 
those wrought by steam or electricity, and 
whose influence transcends all other movements 
as far as the spiritual transcends the material. 
If it be true that this missionary movement 
is a divine inspiration, then the facts of history 
reveal to us the hand of God preparing the 
church for her nineteenth-century task. All 
that goes before is full of significance, and facts 
have faces that shine with intelligent purpose. 
To use another's illustration, ^'To one who 
views Niagara from a distance the promise of 
all that afterwards happens that one sees in the 
river above is the infinitely absorbing thing. 
When within a mile of the end, the great river 
grows serious; everything begins to mean some- 
thing; there is hurry and leap to right and 
left, tumultuous movement, with a darker frown 
settling over it — a setting of the current toward 
the one grand center, a gathering and massing 
of the waters for some magnificent purpose, a 
rolling together in a sort of terrible joy in an- 
ticipation of the final stupendous plunge.'' It 
is thus we feel as we contemplate some of the 
great facts introductory of this century. The 
revival of letters in the fifteenth century; the 
introduction of the printing-press, fitly termed 

67 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

**the right arm of the quickened intellect"; the 
era of discovery; the spiritual uprising of the 
Reformation of the sixteenth century; the great 
revival of the eighteenth century — all these 
great facts are but the marshaling of the hosts 
for the coming conflict. They are as Niagara 
preparing for the final plunge. * 'Christianity,'' 
it has been said, ''took four centuries to subdue 
the empire to Christ; it took eleven more to 
bring Europe under his sway. Eighteen hun- 
dred years have been required to begin even the 
universal missionary era.'' But at last the day 
comes when all things are ready. To the new 
century God gives the "white stone" which 
tells of its special work — the special thought of 
God concerning that age. If "to the fifteenth 
century belongs the revival of art and letters, 
to the sixteenth discovery, to the seventeenth 
the rise of liberty, to the eighteenth the fall of 
feudalism," to the nineteenth God whispers — 
world-wide evangelization. It is the glory of 
this century that it is fulfilling the divine purpose 
concerning it. When the time came, the man 
was not wanting. William Carey was fortunate 
in the time of his birth, for, as one has ob- 
served, "the best of good fortune is being born 
in the same hour with a great opportunity, ar- 
riving on the stage when the curtain is just be- 
ing rung up." This man it was who "found the 
church dying, bade her rise and touch the 

68 



Missions' The Crowning Glory 

world's wretchedness, and go fortli healed." 
After a thousand years of indifference to the 
command of her L<ord, the church slowly 
arouses herself to the great duty which claims 
her. ''A virgin breeze freshens the jaded day.'' 
The old church, so long unmindful of her past 
victories and her supreme mission, once again 
girds herself as '*a strong man to run a race." 
The breath of a new morning is in the air. The 
new century accepts the work which should 
bring to all its coming years more glory than 
all else which men might exalt. The clock of 
time strikes the first hour in the history of a 
world movement. As we consider that work at 
the closing of the century — in the light of its 
aim, the difficulties it has overcome, its tremen- 
dous achievements, its far-reaching signifi- 
cance, and the clear purpose of God — we do not 
hesitate to declare that missions are the crown- 
ing glory of these one hundred years. 

Let us consider more specifically in what con- 
sists the glory of missions — some of the simple 
but great facts which make the mission enter- 
prise transcendent: 

I. Comprehensively stated, it is the glory of 
saving. The purpose of missions is the re- 
vealed purpose of God concerning the world — 
the salvation of the race. The work of mis- 
sions is the continued work of Christ — seeking 
and saving that which is lost. The spirit of 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

missions is the spirit that cares more for the 
groan of one wounded soul than for the shouts 
of thousands. The power of missions is the 
power of the gospel — that power which regen- 
erates sinful man through his acceptance of the 
divine love, the divine forgiveness and the di- 
vine life. The missionary enterprise, in so far 
as the purpose of its inauguration is concerned, 
can lend itself to no lesser task than the salva- 
tion of lost and perishing souls. That is the 
end-all and be-all of its existence. And there- 
in is revealed its crowning glory. All else is 
insignificant and trivial in comparison with a 
work which is the supreme thought of God, and 
whose importance is to be measured by the 
highest cross that was ever outlined against 
earthly horizon. The salvation of man! Could 
there be in heaven or on earth a grander or 
more glorious ministry? It means more than 
the forgiveness of sins, more than the trans- 
formation of the individual, more than the 
sense of personal security in one's relation to 
God. It means the salvation of home, of insti- 
tutions, of marriage, of society, of government 
— of those things with which man has to do — 
the tools with which he works, the agencies 
through which his intellectual and spiritual life 
expresses itself. *^Wake up taste in a man," 
says a writer, '^and he beautifies his home; 
wake up his ideas of freedom, and he fashions 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

new laws. Jesus Christ is here to influence 
man's soul within, that he may transform and 
enrich his life without." It means the redemp- 
tion and glorification of the earth itself, the 
transfiguration of man's environment. **In- 
stead of the thorn shall come up the fir tree, and 
instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle 
tree; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, for 
an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off." 
No more comprehensive and beneficent aim has 
ever been brought to the thought of man or de- 
manded his service. With such a glorious work 
claiming the church — the command of Christ 
appealing to her conscience, the awful world 
destitution appealing to her heart, the possibili- 
ties of the world-field appealing to her enthusi- 
asm — it is not strange that there is scarce a land 
into which she has not gone with this message 
of salvation. No seas have been too wide for 
her to sail, no mountains too steep for her to 
climb, no dangers too great for her to confront. 
That she should ever have known an hour's in- 
difference is the remarkable fact. It is not 
strange that to-day some nine thousand Protest- 
ant missionaries and some forty thousand native 
helpers are proclaiming this gospel in foreign 
lands. The remarkable thing is that after 
eighteen hundred years there are districts with 
ten million inhabitants who have not even 
heard the good news. Nor is it strange that 

71 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

God should have made so plainly manifest his 
presence in a work born of his own heart of 
love — a presence manifest in the opening of 
long-closed doors, in overcoming opposition, in 
providing ways and means, making the ** winds 
his messengers and flames of fire his ministers," 
and in the miracles of transformation which 
have been wrought before our very eyes. 
Strange, indeed, it would have been had that 
presence been withheld or grudgingly granted. 
Nothing is strange — nothing need surprise — in 
view of the majestic and magnificent meaning 
of the missionary enterprise. When the church 
of God shall once thoroughly realize the mean- 
ing of her existence — the glorious aim which 
has been set before her, and the richness and 
comprehensiveness of that aim — the very stars 
in their courses will fight with her and for her 
in the fulfillment of her mission. Instead of 
the estimated four million souls that have been 
brought out of heathen darkness in this cen- 
tury, we shall hear in the coming time *^the 
voice of a great multitude, as the voice of many 
waters, and as the voice of mighty thunderings, 
saying, Alleluia, for the Lord God omnipotent 
reigneth.'' The church has made this century 
glorious in recognizing the infinite worth of the 
soul; the divinity of man; his spiritual possibil- 
ities; his right, by virtue of what he is, to have 
the gospel, which alone can make him what he 

72 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

ought to be, and in proclaiming that gospel for 
the first time in all the lands beneath the sky. 
It is the century of world-wide evangelization — 
this is its crowning glory. 

2. In the prosecution of this work, there 
shines forth in the missionary enterprise the 
glory of human love kindled and evermore in- 
tensified by the divine love — the yearning love 
which refuses to be comforted until universal 
man has found his rest and life in God, and 
whose expression is self-sacrificing service. The 
glory of thought surpasses the glory of things 
as far as man is above machinery, as far as mind 
is above matter. And the glory of love tran- 
scends the glory of thought as far as service is 
higher than selfishness. Brainerd, laboring 
among the North American Indians, * ^jeopard- 
izing his life unto the death on the high places'' 
of the mission field, is greater than any philos- 
opher whose deductions have not become incar- 
nate in duty, even as the dying Sidney, on the 
fenny field of Zutphen, refusing the offered wa- 
ter that another might find refreshment, was 
more glorious in his self-sacrifice than in any 
achievement of his sword or pen. To write of 
one as was written of Henry Marty n — ^Ho have 
prevented him from going to the heathen world 
would almost have broken his heart'' — is to 
give him a higher place in the realm of true 
glory than can be conferred by any record of 

73 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

martial or material achievements. Love hears 
the divine call, *'Get thee out of thy land and 
from thy kindred, and come unto the land which 
I shall show thee"; while philosophy, listening 
to the strains of its own music, promenades the 
shady walks of the academy, or 'lounges 
through lazy afternoons and eves." Francis of 
Assisi, described by Dante as a ** splendor of 
cherubic light," gives more glory to the thir- 
teenth century than proceeds from Dante's im- 
mortal work. Raymond Lully, of the same 
century, ^ ingenious schoolman and inventor of 
the mariner's compass," added greater luster to 
his age as the inspired missionary. *'He who 
loves not lives not; he who lives by the life can- 
not die," are the words of this inventor, who 
found the meaning of life in love rather than 
the greatest intellectual successes. The true 
life, says one, as it is the true religion, '4s that 
which thrusts its arm farthest through the slush 
and slime of sin and degradation to lift a soul 
to its own level." Love in the livery of serv- 
ice is the crowning glory of this age and of 
every age. Those are ringing words of Bishop 
Potter: ''Take my word for it, men and breth- 
ren, unless you and I, and all those who may 
have any gift or stewardship of talents or 
means, of whatever sort, are willing to get up 
out of the sloth and ease and selfish dilettante- 
ism of service, and get down among the people 

74 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

who are battling amid their poverty and ignor- 
ance, then verily the church, in its stately 
splendor, its apostolic orders, its venerable rit- 
ual, its decorous and dignified conventions, is 
revealed as simply a monstrous and insolent im- 
pertinence." Missions mean loving service. 
*'The great Reformation," says a writer, 
'^brought us life in doctrine; the missionary 
reformation of this century is more and more to 
bring us life in service." It has developed, as 
perhaps no other enterprise, unselfish devotion, 
both in the church at home and certainly in her 
messengers on the foreign field. Who shall tell 
worthily the story of the missionary? If there 
were no record of marvelous achievements, no 
thrilling recital of missionary triumphs, no veri- 
table history of whole communities transformed 
by the power of the gospel, the missionaries 
themselves would constitute the crowning glory 
of this century. They are the flower and crown 
of the church. They represent the chivalrous 
in Christianity. They have found joy in self- 
sacrifice, and when the burnt-offering has be- 
gun, the song of the Lord, with the trumpets, 
has also begun. "To believe, to suffer, to love, ' ' 
has been their motto. As we think of them, 
we can truly exclaim: 

What humble hands unbar those gates of morn 
Throug^h which the splendors of the new day burst. 

In the emphasis which missions have placed 

75 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

upon loving service, the influence of **barren 
ortliodoxy" and **dead dogmatic controversy" 
has been minimized. Missions would shame 
the church that has no better business than dis- 
cussing a question of ritual when the cry of 
starving humanity is clamoring to be heard. 
They would rebuke the church that cares for a 
system rather than souls, seeking to preserve 
ecclesiasticism as a substitute for religion. 
They believe that no church has any claim to 
be whose only right is historical and theologi- 
cal. Missions have largely destroyed the influ- 
ence of a theology that can be printed in a 
book, but cannot be v^ritten on human hearts 
and lives; admirably suited to propositions, but 
having no power over people. Of those who 
emphasize dogma while forgetting duty, it may 
be said: 

And yet, where they should have oped the door 
Of charity and light, for all men's finding. 

Squabbled for words upon the altar floor, 
And rent the book in struggle for the binding. 

Missions proclaim in trumpet tones the gospel 
of service, the gospel of present help, the gos- 
pel of immediate and imperative rescue. 
*^ Among the archaic sculptures buried on the 
Acropolis after the sack of Athens by Xerxes, 
and recently unearthed, is a fragment of a pedi- 
ment representing Hercules and the hydra. 
The hero is on all-fours alongside the monster 

76 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

-fit symbol of missionary enterprise. 
Missions mean love on its hands and knees, 
touching the world's wretchedness, grappling 
the world's evil and fighting the world's enemy 
on its own ground. There is no more thrilling 
spectacle than this hand-to-hand conflict with 
the powers of darkness, in striking contrast to 
a speculative theology whose sword flashes in 
mid-air, but strikes no foe. This is the glory 
of missions — love on a level with those whom 
it seeks to help, forgetting all else in its pas- 
sionate desire to serve — saying, if need be, with 
a distinguished scholar, ^^lyct Greek die, let He- 
brew die, but let immortal souls live." 

3. If time permitted, and the story were 
not already an old one, it would be interesting 
to consider the missionary enterprise as illus- 
trating the glory of achievement. Not a few 
men measure the value and dignity of any min- 
istry whatsoever by its tabulated results. They 
know nothing of silent forces and influences — 
of the work of love, for instance, in touching 
hearts without winning converts. They cannot 
appreciate a message without figures. They at- 
tach no importance to the signs of the times, 
to intimations, to tendencies. They are not 
impressed by the statement, for example, that 
Christianity has entered India as a living relig- 
ion, and its leaven is working among her vast 
population, until in 1899 there are indications 

77 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

of deep upheavals and great mass-movements 
toward its acceptance." They ignore the hid- 
den cnrrents of influence and power. We can 
accept the challenge of such without fear of 
shame or confusion. We can tell them — to give 
a recent summary of the result of a century's 
toil and endeavor — that *'the Bible has been 
translated fully into ninety languages of the 
earth, and partially into 230, making in all 320 
languages through which the gospel truth is re- 
vealed to guide the soul to Christ; that 280 mis- 
sionary societies have been organized for work 
— societies which in home administration and 
foreign resources and facilities will compare 
favorably in organized efficiency with the for- 
eign offices and state departments of civilized 
governments; that 9,000 missionaries are in the 
field, and 44,532 native assistants associated 
with them; that almost a round million of con- 
verts have been gathered into the church, and 
there are fully 4,000,000 adherents, under the 
influence, directly or indirectly, of missionary 
instruction; that 70,000,000 pupils have been 
gathered in higher educational institutions, and 
608,000 children are gathered in village mis- 
sionary schools." 

And in this summary we have but the broad, 
sweeping outlines of a mighty picture. If we 
should enter into details, and have each land 
tell us its individual story, our interest would 

78 



Missions: The Crowning Glory- 
be intensified to the pitcli of exalted enthusi- 
asm. We should hear that in the Sandwich 
Islands, on a Lord's day in July, 1838, 1,705 
souls were baptized into Christ; and that on a 
Sunday in July, 1878, in the Telugu Mission in 
India, 2^2,22, became obedient to the faith. But 
why need I recite the thrilling record of facts 
and figures? Read missionary literature if you 
find it difficult to believe in the day of Pente- 
cost. Read missionary literature if you are 
disposed to think that the day of great things 
has been superseded by the commonplace. 
Read missionary literature if it seems to you 
that the stately steppings of the Almighty no 
longer resound in the corridors of earth. If you 
seek substantial results, go to the mission fields 
and read in the things you see an enlarged edi- 
tion of the Acts of the Apostles. I believe that 
no enterprise of this century can show grander 
returns for time, money and energy invested 
than the missionary enterprise. Missions a fail- 
ure? Not unless the sun is a failure when the 
green grass and the flowers say, ''It is your 
light and heat which have quickened us and 
given to us our beauty and glory. '^ The suc- 
cess of missions is demonstrated by palpable 
facts, and the man who shuts his eyes to them 
would not be persuaded by resurrection wonders 
or signs in heaven above or the earth beneath. 
We have much to shame us — much to humble 

79 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

us. We have not measured up to our responsi- 
bilities and opportunities. But we dare to pro- 
claim — despite our faults and failures — that the 
organized missionary work of one hundred years 
surpasses in brilliancy of achievement any min- 
istry of science, art, invention or discovery of 
which tbe century may boast. Christianity 
is more than a sentiment among the nations of 
the earth. It has come to be a felt force which 
may not be ignored, and whose tremendous 
energy is irresistible. The facts of missions are 
our standing army in all the countries of the 
world, guarding the territory already won by 
the King against unjust criticism, and giving 
notice that wherever the flag of this King has 
been lifted it shall never be lowered. 

4. Furthermore, and finally, we behold in 
missions the glory of vision. First, the vision 
which corresponds to outlook. A distinguished 
author tells us: ''That day, in answer to the 
Macedonian call, when Paul and Luke sailed 
straight across to Samothrace and landed at 
Neapolis, the port of Philippi, Christianity left 
its Asiatic cradle, and became henceforth the 
one universal missionary faith for the race.'* 
But the great vision was forgotten. Until this 
missionary century — barring a few exceptional 
instances — the life of the church, to use the fig- 
ure of a brilliant writer, was as ''a rivulet, cut 
off from the hills on which the feeding springs 

80 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

rise and the clouds pour down their richness. 
The rivulet may be swift, but it can never have 
depth, volume or force. The great streams in 
which the stars shine, and on which the sails of 
commerce whiten and fade, are fed by half a 
continent." The life of the church to-day is 
such a stream, washing the shores of all lands, 
reflecting from its broad bosom the stars which 
shine upon all continents. We have stood on a 
mountain in Galilee, and have seen Europe, 
Asia, Africa and America. *'When one has 
seen a great view from some lofty summit, he 
does not question the existence of the land- 
scape because, after he has descended into the 
valley, he no longer sees it. However circum- 
scribed the world may be which folds him in, 
he knows he has only to climb the mountain to 
see a greater world." True and beautiful, in- 
deed, is the sentiment. The church may have 
her commonplace days, when she sees only her 
little local and provincial duties; but she need 
only climb with the Master that Galilean sum- 
mit and the world vision is hers again. She 
can never more doubt that China and Japan do 
actually exist, and that she may not escape her 
duty to them. And, in this extended view, we 
have received a revelation of our own dignity. 
Somebody expresses the thought in saying, 
**We like to look upon the mountains because 
heights are in us, and on the ocean because far 
(6) 81 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

shores and horizons still farther are in us.'^ 
And when a world has been taken into our 
affections, the vastness and the mighty possi- 
bilities of the affections become apparent. We 
never knew how great we were until we found 
ourselves capable of loving man as man in all 
lands, and placed under all conditions. Nor is 
it foolhardy to think of world-needs, and to un- 
tertake a service coextensive with the sweep of 
our vision; for our gospel is sufficient unto the 
vision. Jesus Christ has crowded into it ade- 
quate energy for the world's redemption; even 
as the attar of roses has whole fields of crimson 
blossoms that have been swept together in one 
tiny vial, or as the Cremona violin is a mass of 
condensed melody, each atom soaked in a 
thousand songs, until the instrument reeks with 
sweetness. Our sufficiency is of God, who has 
given us means adequate to the end. We dare 
not narrow the vision, for that would be to dis- 
honor the means approved of God as sufficient 
to realize the vision. ^^Amplius" must be writ- 
ten on our banner. And, too, there has come 
to the church during this century as never be- 
fore the vision of the suffering Christ in the per- 
son of the suffering millions. ^^Wraptinthe 
pale winding-sheet of general terms, the great- 
est tragedies of history evoke no vivid images 
in our mind." How true is the declaration! 
But when we see with our own eyes, the reality 

82 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

of the tragedy is with us for all time. The 
church has seen during this century the shame 
and sin and wretchedness of a world. That 
vision makes ease forevermore impossible. We 
can now understand Ruskin when he says, *^I 
cannot paint, nor read, nor look at minerals, nor 
do anything else that I like, and the very light 
of the morning sun has become hateful to me, 
because of the misery that I know of, and see 
signs of, when I know it not, which no imagi- 
nation can interpret too bitterly. Therefore I 
will no longer endure it quietly, but henceforth, 
with any, few or many, who will help, do my 
poor best to abate this misery." The compul- 
sion of love must more and more be the experi- 
ence of every true follower of Jesus Christ. The 
vision of world destitution has been burnt into 
our very souls, and indifferentism henceforth 
becomes infamy. When the vision of the suf- 
fering Christ came to Tissot, he could no longer 
paint the gay scenes of fashionable Paris. He 
says, *^The vision pursued me even after I had 
left the church. It stood between me and my 
canvas. I tried to brush it away, but it re- 
turned insistently. ' ' We have seen the wounded 
side of Christ in beholding the misery of the 
heathen world. We dare not turn away and 
forget. And, too, there has come to the church 
the vision splendid — the vision of the coming 
glory. '^From the rising of the sun unto the 

83 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

going down of the same, my name shall be great 
among the Gentiles, and in every place incense 
shall be offered unto my name and a pure offer- 
ing.'' The missionary enterprise has developed 
this splendid optimism. Difficulties do not dis- 
courage, for faith can wait on the Lord and be 
of good courage. If we are told that **even a 
million of converts a year would mean nearly 
three hundred years before India was won for 
Christ,'' we reply, with Martyn, ''Yes, it shall 
be. Yonder stream of Ganges shall one day 
roll through tracts adorned with Christian 
churches and cultivated by Christian husband- 
men, and holy hymns be heard beneath the 
shade of the tamarind." The dream of him 
who sleeps in his lonely grave at Tocat is shared 
to-day by every missionary church. Our faith 
is in God, who has promised, in the adaptability 
of his message to the needs of the world, and 
in man's sure recognition of that message as 
containing his highest good. We do not shut 
our eyes to the vastness of the problem; we do 
not forget that we have only nine thousand mis- 
sionaries to meet a thousand millions who are 
in the darkness of ignorance; we are not un- 
mindful of the tremendous task involved in 
mastering a foreign language and creating a lit- 
erature; nor do we lose sight of tlie bigotry and 
prejudice that must be overcome; yet with God 
^nd his Christ we dare to believe that we shall 

84 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

conquer the world. The man of faith, as Dr. 
Storrs tells ns, ''expects long toil and many dis- 
asters, incarnadined seas, dreary wildernesses, 
battles with giants, and spasms of fear in the 
heart of the church. But he looks, as surely as 
he looks for the sunrise after nights of tempest 
and of lingering dawn, for the ultimate illumi- 
nation of the world." The signs of promise 
are everywhere. Multiplying facilities are wait- 
ing our touch to become obedient messengers of 
the King, ''All the facilities of modern meth- 
ods of travel, of postal arrangements, of inter- 
national comity, of financial exchange and of 
telegraphic communication are in the interest of 
foreign work.'^ Recent events are the beckon- 
ing of God's finger. The blood-stained trenches 
around Manila mean more than the noble sacri- 
fice of brave men. They speak of opportunity 
and responsibility, "opportunities such as any 
military commander would be cashiered for neg- 
lecting if he dared to ignore them in the midst 
of a military campaign." They mean the has- 
tening of God's day. The coming century will 
be the most glorious in all the annals of time. 
Emerson says: "When I read the poets, I think 
that nothing new can be said about morning 
and evening, but when I see the day break, I 
am not reminded of the Homeric and Chaucerian 
pictures." And so, when we read the proph- 
ets, we say, "No bird can race in the great blue 

85 



Missions: The Crowning Glory 

sky against the flight of hope and love." 
There can be nothing grander than this glori- 
ous dream. But when the morning breaks — 
when vision and fact are wedded — the anticipa- 
tion shall seem tame beside the reality. Like 
Merlin, we will follow the gleam, and the daz- 
zling splendor shall be our reward. 

Blow, trumpet, for the world is white with May; 
Blow, trumpet, the long night hath rolled away; 
Blow through the living world, *'Let the King reign.** 



86 



VIII. 
THE CRADLE AND CHRISTMAS. 

"And he took a child and set him in the midst of them." Mark 9:36. 

This is the happy Christmas time, and the 
child is king. The Babe of Bethlehem has con- 
verted the cradle into a throne. No monarch of 
earth holds such undisputed sway over his sub- 
jects as the little sovereign of the home. The 
curly head wears the crown, and the tiny hands 
bear the scepter. All hail to the king! 

I sometimes wonder if the after years have 
brought to us any joy so vivid, so fresh with the 
dew of heaven, as that which comes to the child 
on Christmas day. Deeper and richer joys, 
born of deeper and richer experience, we have 
known; but none so keen, so spontaneous, so 
completely satisfying for the moment. It is a 
long time, my friends, from manhood's prime, 
with its cares and responsibilities, to those 
opening days of life when Santa Claus was a 
reality, and we dwelt in the fair world of imagi- 
nation and illusion. Well it is for us that the 
Christmas time should revive these memories. 
Otherwise we might become cold and hard and 
loveless. Otherwise, so absorbed are we in 
grappling with the stern, hard conditions of 

87 



The Cradle and Christmas 

life, we might forget that heaven is real or that 
this old world was once touched with a glory 
that never shone on land or sea. It is good to 
feel that glow which comes from the days that 
are no more, and to bring ourselves under the 
inspiration of that prayer which can never be 
answered in literal fashion: 

Backward, turn backward, O Time, in thy flight! 
Make me a child again, just for to-nighl? 

Jesus loved the little children. Concerning 
them He spoke the immortal words, ''Suffer the 
little children to come unto me, and forbid them 
not, for of such is the kingdom of heaven." 
The figure of the Master with a little child in 
His arms is worthy to be immortalized in high- 
est art. The man who does not love the child 
is fit for treasons, stratagems and spoils. It 
was a child who led Silas Marner out of sullen- 
ness into sunny peace. It was a child who 
completed the work of redemption in the storm- 
swept soul of Jean Val Jean, and in that vision 
of peace when the lion and the lamb shall lie 
down together, under the beneficent reign of 
love, the prophet adds, ^'A little child shall 
lead them." 

The religion of Jesus is unique in the empha- 
sis it places upon childhood. It has been said 
that other religions ignore or forget the child. 
Mohammed seems to know nothing about chil- 
dren. In heathen mythology the gods are not 



The Cradle and Christmas 

born as children; they come upon the stage full 
grown. Jesus, on the other hand, sets a child 
in the midst of his disciples, and, with the 
child as His text, declares that the child-spirit 
is an indispensable condition of entrance into 
His kingdom. Not cleverness, not earthly pos- 
sessions, not worldly greatness, are necessary, 
but the simplicity and naturalness and upward 
look of tenderness which are characteristic of 
the child life and the child spirit. 

I want you to think to-night of the reason- 
bleness of this emphasis which is placed by 
Jesus upon childhood. You will observe that 
Christianity must always remain young because 
Christianity has the child at its very heart. It 
can adapt itself to new conditions, to new 
circumstances, but it is always young. The 
Ancient of Days who leads the mighty host of 
Christian men and women is always and every- 
where the Babe of Bethlehem. Christianity 
honors the child as a revelation of the divine 
nature. One day when Jesus was instructing 
His disciples He said unto them, *'He that 
receiveth one such child in my name receiveth 
Me, and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him 
that sent Me." To receive the child is to 
receive Christ, and to receive Christ is to re- 
ceive God. The child is the miniature of the 
divine; as a drop of dew can mirror the sun, 
so the child life reflects divine life. The babe 

89 



The Cradle and Christmas 

in its mother's arms has no conscious sin, and, 
therefore, no feeling of shame. It could look 
the tallest angel in the face and reach out its 
little arms to receive the angelic embrace. As 
pure as the driven snow, as white as any angel 
that sings round the throne of God — this is the 
child nature. I do not deny that there are evil 
tendencies inherited by the child, but they are 
tendencies which have not become evil. 

Monstrous, indeed, is the doctrine of infant 
depravity in the light of that sublime utterance 
of Jesus Christ, ^'Of such is the kingdom of 
heaven." Who can look into the clear, inno- 
cent eyes of a babe and not feel the truth of 
that line of Wordsworth, ^^ Heaven lies around 
us in our infancy''? Who can doubt but that 
babyhood brings down to earth some of the 
blue sky, and comes to us trailing clouds of 
glory? Concerning an infant, Mrs. Browning 
has sung, ^^We could not wish her whiter, her 
who perfumed with pure blossom the house, a 
lovely thing to wear upon a mother's bosom." 

Let us keep in mind the fact that the child- 
nature is a revelation of the divine nature. 
Standing in the presence of the child, we feel 
the glow of another w^orld, and the touch of 
baby fingers calls forth all that is tenderest and 
purest and noblest in human nature. Music 
thrills us or soothes us. A great thought 
challenges us and dominates us, but the child 

90 



The Cradle and Christmas 

comes into our lives as music, as thought, as 
sunshine, as the very breath of flowers. The 
child is the miracle of Eden repeated, a new 
creation fresh from the hand of God, and no 
angel in heaven is cleaner or whiter or purer. 

With this thought in mind we are prepared 
to understand somewhat that great utterance of 
the great Teacher: *^ Except ye be- converted 
and become as little children ye cannot enter 
into the kingdom of heaven." 

But how can we become like little children? 
We cannot recover lost innocence. Gone for- 
ever is the tender grace of a day that is dead. 
The gates of Eden are closed and the flaming 
Angel of Experience stands guard. We cannot 
recover lost purity. Sin has left its indelible 
imprint upon our nature, and into our expe- 
rience has come tliat which is foul and that 
which is unclean, and sometimes as we think 
of that bright yesterday, with its whiteness, 
with its purity, there comes to us a great long- 
ing, if only it could become real, 'Svasli me 
and cleanse me and make me whiter than 
snow." Certainly we cannot become like little 
children in their credulity, for we must use the 
minds which God has given us in dealing with 
the problems which confront us. Nor can we 
become like children in their helplessness and 
their dependence, for the trumpet has sounded 
and the battle is on, and strong arms and 

91 



The Cradle and Christmas 

steady nerves and manly courage are indis- 
pensable in winning the victory. How shall 
we become like little children? Is there any 
other way than the putting forth of honest and 
earnest endeavor to recover, in some fashion, 
this divine image which is inherent in the 
child-nature and which we still possess, 
although dishonored and effaced and blurred? 

A very pathetic story is told by the biog- 
rapher of Emerson to the effect that on one 
occasion he was observed by his daughter gaz- 
ing in reverie out upon his garden, and his 
daughter said to him: ^ ^Father, what are you 
looking for?" and he made answer in simple 
and yet pathetic fashion: *^I am looking for 
myself." The old self that could flash and 
flame, the splendid self, with its keen intui- 
tions, with its marvelous wisdom, was gone, 
and the feeble old man w^as looking for that 
lost self. What is religion but the earnest 
endeavor on the part of a man who has lost 
the divine image or has allowed that image to 
become effaced, and is seeking to recover it? 

We are looking for that self which in the 
child is clean and pure and white, and which 
must be recovered in the man with the added 
elements of character and experience. 

Furthermore, Christianity honors childhood 
because of its possibilities. The child is life 
in the bud; life unfolding; life with all of its 

92 



The Cradle and Christmas 

vast possibilities. Interested friends gazed 
upon the tiny form of the infant, John the 
Baptist, and wonderingly inquired, what man- 
ner of child shall this be? And so all parents 
as they receive this great gift from the loving 
God dream of the future of this wonderful 
creature in their arms. *'By what astrology 
of fear and hope dare I to cast thy horoscope?" 
So thought a young mother of the Southland 
as she rocked the cradle in which slept her 
first born. With the flowers about her and the 
birds singing in her ears and in her heart, she 
dreamed of a splendid future for this child of 
divine love. The years come and go; the child 
grows to young manhood; is sent to college 
and to a university, and there forms the accursed 
appetite for strong drink. One day, frenzied 
and mad, under the spell of the awful demon, he 
slays a man; he is tried; he is sentenced; he is 
executed. It is too much for the brain of this 
mother. She became insane, and she sat all 
day long by the empty cradle, rocking it and 
crooning a lullaby in ears that heard not. 
Empty was the cradle and dark was her soul. 

Oh, the future of the child! Shall he be a 
Nero, the nightmare of history, or a Paul, the 
humble disciple of the Christ? What manner 
of child shall this be? 

This is an age of the child. It is the age 
of the kindergarten; it is the age of juvenile 

93 



The Cradle and Christmas 

courts; it is the age of newsboys' homes and 
houses of reform; it is the age of legal pro- 
tection for childhood; it is an age when child- 
life is being more scientifically studied than 
ever before in all the history of the world. 
Christianity is responsible for this change. 
The child is the citizen and Christian of to- 
morrow. As the child is, so the coming age 
will be. Shall it help to bring in the glories 
seen by prophet and seer, or shall the old world 
move onward unto night? Awful is the re- 
sponsibility which rests upon those who are 
entrusted with child-life. May God give them 
the grace to discharge that responsibility in 
His fear and in the light of the possibilities 
of childhood. 

Mrs. Browning sang long ago a song that 
stirred the heart of America — the cry of the 
children: 

*'Do you not hear the children weeping, 

Oh, my brothers, ere the sorrow comes with years? 
They lean their young heads against their mothers, 
But this cannot stop their tears.'* 

When we think of the child laboring, 
whether in the factory or in the cotton fields 
of the South, we feel like echoing that other 
line in her poem: 

"The sob ot the child in the silence 
Curses deeper than the strong man in his wrath." 

Woe be unto the man who builds up his 
fortune on the blood and happiness of child- 

94 



The Cradle and Christmas 

hood, whose gold is piled up at the expense of 
buried innocence. In our Declaration of In- 
dependence we are fond of descanting upon the 
inalienable rights of man. The child has in- 
alienable rights, the right to parental love, 
the right to legal protection, the right to 
sing as the bird, the right to be happy, the 
right to lay hold of opportunities provided for 
him for his free and spontaneous and full 
development. To rob the child of those rights 
is to dishonor the character of our liberties as 
well as to call down upon us the curse of Jesus 
Christ. It were better for such a man that a 
mill stone were hanged about his neck and that 
he were buried in the depths of the sea. 

Christianity has to a large extent eman- 
cipated childhood. The old Roman and Greek 
poets do not even so much as mention mother. 
Such an affectionate character as Horace 
makes no reference to childhood. Evidently 
childhood under the Greek and Roman civiliza- 
tions was dishonored or ignored or largely sub- 
ordinated; but to-day the child looms up large 
and splendid against the horizon, for the child 
is the future nation. 

In concluding this sermon I want to speak 
of the child as a revelation of the divine Fath- 
erhood. ^'Unto us a son is born, unto us a 
child is given." This is the refrain through 
the ages of that splendid anthem that the 

95 



The Cradle and Christmas 

angels sang long ago on the plains of Judea. 
Through the child we come to know the father. 
The human relationship of the child and the 
father enables us to understand the character of 
the relationship which exists between God and 
His children. Our God is no Jove whose brow is 
clothed with thunder, no Moloch who needs to 
be placated with human sacrifice. Our God is 
a loving, tender, compassionate, heavenly 
Father, and Jesus has given to us the very 
sweetest words in all literature when he taught 
his disciples to pray, *'Our Father who art in 
heaven." That was a new revelation. That 
was a revolutionary doctrine. Never before 
had the great word been spoken with the 
emphasis and accent given by Jesus Christ. 
Whereas in the Old Testament the word Father 
occurs perhaps twice, in the New Testament it 
occurs no less than 200 times. Jesus has asso- 
ciated in His teaching with the fatherhood all 
that is beautiful in nature and in life, and ele- 
vated it to such an eminence as to-day makes 
it impossible for us to accept any hard theol- 
ogy that would exalt His sovereignty at the 
expense of His love. God is our Father. This 
is the image of the child Jesus. When the 
years press heavily upon us and the form be- 
comes bowed and intimations and suggestions 
of various sorts remind us that the day is draw- 
ing to a close and that the shadows of the last 

96 



The Cradle and Christmas 

night are gathering, wonderful is the provision 
of divine grace in the particular that we be- 
come children again. Paul, the rugged, virile 
apostle, when in a tender mood trying to make 
his people understand the goodness and gra- 
ciousness of God, uses the language of the 
nursery, and we hear him exclaim, '^Abba, 
Father!'' or *'Papa, papa!" We are children 
again. 

The story is told of an old Scotchman that, 
when he was dying — a man who had never 
worn his heart upon his sleeve— he said in 
his wanderings, recurring again to his Scotch 
dialect, ''I am gaen doon; hae a grup o' my 
hand." So in that last hour, when the grand 
rush of darkness shall come in upon our souls, 
we shall reach up our hands, not to some 
abstract principle called sweetness and light, 
but we shall reach up our hands through the 
darkness to the hands of a Father, and we 
shall say, *' Father, we are going down; have a 
grip of our hands." 

May this Christmas time bring gladness to 
all the children in this city we love, and if you 
can make bright one life, the life of a child, 
regard the opportunity as a very angel of God 
to be seized and welcomed with eagerness and 
enthusiasm. Let us make the bridge between 
babyhood and manhood just as long as possible, 
for soon enough we shall exchange the flowers 
(7) 97 



The Cradle and Christmas 

aud the crown for the sword and the spear. 

I wish you, my friends, a merry, merry 
Christmas and a happy, happy New Year; and 
the secret of it shall be for you and for me that 
we love and honor the children. 



98 



IX 
THE THREE DIMENSIONS OF MANHOOD 

And the city lieth foursquare, and the length is as large as the 
breadth: and he measured the city with a reed, twelve thousand 
furlongs. The length, and the breadth, and the height of it are 
equal.— Rev. 21:16. 

I invite attention to a phrase or sentence 
found in the sixteenth verse of the twenty-first 
chapter of the Book of Revelation: *^The 
length, and the breadth, and the height of it 
are equal." 

In his vision of the mystic city the inspired 
seer observes its symmetry — its length and 
breadth and height were equal. If this city of 
dream be a symbol of our glorified humanity, 
as has been supposed, then the perfect man 
shall be completely and equally developed in 
every part of his being. No one part shall be 
sacrificed to another part, but each part shall 
be brought to its full fruition and realization. 
It is worth while for us to dream of this perfect 
humanity when God shall have given the last 
touch of grace and beauty to human character. 
But we are concerned at this time with the 
development of a humanity in the midst of 
earthly conditions and limitations. We are to 
think of a humanity that shall be strong and 

99 



Dimensions of Manhood 

radiant and powerful despite the weaknesses 
which are incident to the possession of flesh. 

What is the measure of a man? The meas- 
ure of a building is the standard that applies in 
discovering its dimensions, in ascertaining its 
conformity to the design of the architect, in 
revealing its adequateness or its defects as 
respects both material and construction. Like- 
wise the measure of a man is those qualities 
which are inherent in character, which are 
clearly proclaimed in the very constitution of 
his being and which find illustration and em- 
phasis in the lives of those who are representa- 
tive of a normal humanity. 

To measure a house is, therefore, to judge it, 
to test it; likewise to measure a man is to test 
him and to judge him, or, rather, to have his own 
nature to pronounce sentence upon him. I am 
thinking to-night, friends, of the indispensa- 
ble elements of manhood — of those qualities 
without v/hich one is not a man save as he may 
be distinguished in our thought by gender. I 
am not thinking of the adornments and ara- 
besques of the human soul. I am not thinking 
of the luxuries and refinements which may be- 
long to our spiritual equipment. I am think- 
ing of those qualities which are as necessary to 
manhood as sap is to the life of a tree, as blood 
is to the life of a body. I want to consider the 
length and breadth and height of manhood. 

100 



Dimensions of Manhood 

To speak of the first dimension of character, 
I may be permitted to remark that the term 
which expresses the length of a man is moral- 
ity, in that it has to do with every part of his 
nature, both his inner and outer life. By 
morality I mean those virile and vigorous 
qualities known as truthfulness, purity, right- 
eousness, honesty — honesty or fair dealing as 
between man and man; righteousness or right- 
ness in the quality of our acts; purity as op- 
posed to licentiousness; truthfulness as opposed 
to lying. These are elementary and funda- 
mental things. They certainly describe the 
circumference of wholesome living. Without 
these qualities one is a thief, a liar, a liber- 
tine, a moral pervert; he is a man only in 
the sense that he is not a woman; he is 
differentiated only by his sex. Wanting these 
qualities, all that makes manhood is sacrificed. 
One may have the genius of a Shakespeare, 
the learning of a Bacon, the graces of a 
Chesterfield, the eloquence of Burke, the 
statesmanship of Machiavelli; but if he be 
not honest and pure and truthful and right- 
eous, his graces and accomplishments are only 
a sort of brilliant badness, the phosphores- 
cence of which proceeds from decay and death. 
Nothing can take the place of morality. With- 
out it, government is tyranny; without it, re- 
ligion is hypocrisy; and, indeed, it is the 

101 



Dimensions of Manhood 

only guarantee of soundness in our work. Our 
work is the expression of our nature; and if the 
nature be corrupt, the work will partake of that 
character. I do not believe that a liar can paint 
a truthful picture save as he is a copyist; I do 
not believe that a libertine can write a pure 
line save as he is a plagiarist. In so far as one's 
work is the spontaneous and natural expres- 
sion of his soul, that work must partake of the 
nature of his soul. The stream cannot rise 
higher than its source. 

Beware of the man who laughs at moral dis- 
tinctions as only conventional lines which, like 
State lines can be crossed without any con- 
sciousness of a transition. If he is a politician, 
he is a menace to the State; if he is a business 
man, his motto will be: ^'Do the other fellow 
before he does you.'' And if he is a husband, 
his name will figure in the divorce courts and 
be associated with scandals. It is absolutely 
impossible for any man to maintain either his 
self-respect or the respect of his fellows save as 
his character is rooted in these fundamental 
and rugged virtues. 

We hear very much said of moral courage. 
What is moral courage but that fine spirit which 
dares to maintain the moral integrity of the 
soul? It refuses to go with the crowd to do evil; 
it refuses to tell a lie in order to gain a throne; 
it refuses to believe any art or literature 

102 



Dimensions of Manhood 

beautiful which brings the blush of shame to 
the brow of innocence; it says in the realm of 
business, with that noble prince, when tempted 
to meanness, *^The house of Savoy knows the 
path of defeat, but not of dishonor"; it dares to 
condemn domestic infamy,* business dishonor, 
industrial robbery, political corruption as ene- 
mies of the soul. We enshrine in literature the 
names of Hector of Troy, and Arthur of Brit- 
tany, and Launcelot of the L<ake; but the man 
who ought to be enshrined in our admiration 
is he who stands guard at the citadel of the 
human soul against all enemies who may 
come. 

I believe that in standing for the right of the 
soul to truth and purity and honesty, we are 
maintaining inalienable rights, and to the ex- 
tent that we .dare against all foes in behalf of 
these inalienable rights, we are fighting over 
again the War of the Revolution. The funda- 
mental principles of the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence are not artificial rights or legal 
rights, but rights that have come straight from 
the Lord God Almighty and with which gov- 
ernment has nothing to do save to protect them 
and to guard them and to maintain them. I 
plead to-night for that dimension of character 
which has to do with every part of our life, 
namely, morality. 

But let us pass on to consider the breadth of 
103 



Dimensions of Manhood 

a man, or that dimension which represents the 
ontreach of his nature laterally. The term 
which describes this dimension is sympathy. 
One may be moral and yet mean; one may be 
pure, and cruel; one may be righteous, and 
thoroughly uncharitable; one may be truthful 
and yet narrow and selfish and hard; one may 
have all the elements that enter into the con- 
stitution of what we mean by the term morality, 
and yet be the most despicable of creatures. 
Call to mind Saul of Tarsus. He was honest, 
he was conscientious, he was truthful, he was 
a man who could say, prior to his conversion as 
well as after his conversion, ^^I have wronged 
no man, I have defrauded no man, I have cor- 
rupted no man," and yet the record informs us 
that with this moral character he was breath- 
ing out threatenings and slaughter against the 
Disciples, and was a destroying influence, until 
that vision on the road to Damascus smote 
him, giving width to his nature, sympathy to 
his life, and love for all the world. 

You know the type of man of whom I am 
speaking. He is represented by the prodigal's 
brother. The prodigal's brother prided him- 
self on his morality; he had worked at home; he 
had not dishonored his nature with excesses; he 
had been truthful; he was a thoroughly model 
young man; but the meanness of the man is 
seen in his refusal to give the hand of welcome 

104 



Dimensions of Manhood 

and fellowship to a returning and penitent 
brotlier. There are men who are so absolutely 
correct that they have no compunction of con- 
science whatever in exacting the last pound of 
flesh from a debtor; they would not hesitate to 
dock the salary of a sick clerk; isn't it honest to 
do it? They wouldn't hesitate to turn a poor 
family on the street because the rent at the end 
of the month is unpaid. Is there anything dis- 
honest in the transaction? That which gives 
softness to life, that which gives evidence of 
culture, that which gives mellowness to the 
soul, is width. We are to go beyond the letter 
of the law and be merciful; we are to show 
ourselves magnanimous if there shall be placed 
upon our brow the crown of royal manhood. 

I mean by sympathy the antithesis of selfish- 
ness. It is that openness and receptiveness of 
soul which takes in the needs and rights and 
sufferings and sorrows and joys of our fellow- 
men. Wanting it, you have the tyrant in 
government; the legalist in religion; the cynic 
in philosophy; the hard, stern man in the home 
and in business. Wanting it you have a John 
Calvin in the church consenting to the death 
of Servetus; you have a Javert in fiction pursu- 
ing like a sleuth hound Jean Valjean; you have 
in the home a man whose presence freezes the 
atmosphere — one who substitutes himself as an 
object of worship rather than the L,ord God 

105 



Dimensions of Manhood 

Almighty. I care not how honest a man may 
be, I care not how rigliteous a man may be, I 
care not how pure a man may be, I care not 
how truthful a man may be, if he be wanting 
in this sympathy he is a hard, miserable, im- 
poverished creature, not worthy the name of 
a man. 

Yonder, on a wind-swept plain, is a tree, in 
its wintry garb. No birds twitter in its branches; 
no weary travelers rest beneath its shade; no 
cattle browse under its sheltering boughs. It is 
a symbol of strength without beauty, of life 
without sympathy. It is hard and cold and 
repellant and forbidding. But wait until the 
spring comes and the sap begins to course 
through the trunk and outward through 
the branches, and then there shall come forth 
blossom and fruitage; then that same tree shall 
become a haven of refuge for the weary, and 
the birds shall sing in its branches and the 
cattle shall rest beneath its shade. 

There are your two men. To the one man 
nobody ever goes in time of trouble; one from 
whom nobody expects kind words; one of whom 
the children are afraid; one who does not enjoy 
the beauty of the world; one who simply be- 
lieves in toeing the mark and in having every- 
body else to toe the mark; one who carries 
about his moral qualities in proud fashion, like 
the Pharisee, saying: '^I thank thee, O God, I 

106 



Dimensions of Manhood 

am not as this publican." He is a most objec- 
tionable personage and he has not the fine grain 
which makes the man. To length there must 
be added breadth; to morality there must be 
added sympathy. 

Now, I want to speak of the height of a 
man. What is the height of a man? It is the 
best that is in him. It is the highest called 
forth by provocation. You can never tell the 
height of a man until he has been brought face 
to face with some great opportunity, with some 
temptation, with some trying experience. It is 
the critical moment that reveals the height of 
a man. Nobody ever dreamed of the moral 
stature of Robert E. I<ee, save as that altitude 
displayed itself when he preferred to share with 
his own people reproach and if need be defeat, 
rather than to enjoy the honors of a brilliant 
career under different circumstances. The 
height of Abraham lyincoln was revealed in 
those trying hours of the civil conflict when 
he guided the ship of state with a steady hand 
and head and with a loving heart. You can 
not measure even the intellectual height of a 
man save when the great occasion shows itself. 
In that memorable hour when Webster stood in 
the United States Senate and gave utter- 
ance to one of the most memorable 
speeches ever delivered in that body, in that 
critical moment, the man springs up to his full 

107 



Dimensions of Manhood 

stature and you realize that the intellectual 
height of the man has found expression. 

I have been reading recently two or three 
incidents which appealed to me very powerfully 
as illustrating the height of human nature. I 
believe, friends, in human nature. I believe 
in its possibilities. I am not one of those who 
would take up the strain of the pessimist and 
say that ^^every heart when sifted well is a clot 
of warmer dust mixed with cunning sparks 
of hell." 

Since Jesus Christ has worn this humanity 
and revealed its possibilities, I am prepared to 
believe all of the great and splendid things 
concerning men of which one may read. Here 
is an illustration in the recent Iroquois fire. 
There was in the building on that fateful 
day a man of wealth, a man of culture, 
a man who rather prided himself on his 
moral qualities, a man who honored his 
good name as the m^ost valuable of all his 
possessions. When the fire broke out, occupy- 
ing a place of vantage, he rushed from the 
building, over the bodies of women and chil- 
dren, making his escape in safety. Some 
friends met him on the following day and con- 
gratulated him on his escape. He looked upon 
them sorrowfully and said: '*! had no finan- 
cial interest in that theatre, but I have lost 
everything which a man holds dear, self-respect 

108 



Dimensions of Manhood 

and honor. I had no moral right to come out 
of that building alive. My wife and family 
were provided for, all of my business interests 
were in condition for me to quit this mortal 
scene, and yet the little capital of manhood 
which I had accumulated through the years 
was swept away by that Iroquois fire. I can 
not receive your congratulations." 

I am not discussing now the casuistry of the 
question. I am not here to say whether or not 
the man did right or wrong in thinking only of 
his personal safety and in making his escape 
from that burning building. I say the critical 
hour came, that the moment of opportunity was 
before him, and that his height was not equal 
to his length or his width. 

In that very same city, a nephew of the 
famous preacher. Dr. Gunsaulus, was in 
the theater which was to be opened the 
following Sunday in a religious service by 
his distinguished uncle. He desired to see 
the building, and while in the building the 
fire broke forth. This young man made his 
way to a window overlooking an alley, in 
which alley there were painters at work. He 
called for a ladder, he placed one end of 
this ladder in a window and the other end in 
the window of the opposite building, then 
called for a plank to bridge the alley, and 
stood there with the flames leaping about him, 

109 



Dimensions of Manhood 

placing women and children on the path to 
safety, brushing aside all obstacles, himself the 
victim of the flames, and yet seemingly unmind- 
ful of his peril. That young man after the fire 
was taken to a hospital, and he made this re- 
mark: '^Some men have their chance at sixty, 
some have their chance at forty, some have 
their chance at thirty; I have had my chance at 
twenty, and I am happy," and he fell asleep 
with the kiss of God upon his brow. 

Are we living in a commonplace age, a 
prosaic age? I say to you, friends, you cannot 
measure the height of a man until the great 
opportunity comes, until the great trial hour 
arrives, until the critical moment presents itself, 
and you shall discover that in many a common- 
place fellow who walks by your side you have 
not only length, not only breadth, but you 
have a moral stature so splendid and so glorious 
as to be worthy of the name of hero. 

I have not spoken of the influence of 
Christian faith on character; I have been 
speaking only of these fundamental elements 
of human life which shall make it self-respect- 
ing and capable of honor and respect. I need 
not tell you that the sort of manhood I have 
been describing is impossible apart from Chris- 
tian faith. If a man does not believe in God, 
he does not believe in morality. There is no 
reason for him to believe in morality. If a 

110 



Dimensions of Manhood 

man would develop that sympathy of which I 
have been speaking he must learn the secret of 
it and the power of it in the character of Jesus 
Christ. If a man would attain unto the splen- 
did possibilities of his nature he must recognize 
these possibilities as realized in the life of the 
Son of God. I have not been speaking of any 
other sort of humanity than that which we 
have a right to expect from the humblest in- 
dividual who walks the streets of our city. 
The measure of a man is what normal man 
ought to be, what we have a right to expect 
him to be. The Christian man is the higher 
man; he is the normal man carried into higher 
regions, into higher realms, into more splendid 
conditions, into a larger environment. We 
have electric sentences to thrill the world. 
''England expects every man to do his duty" 
was the sentence that caused the blood of the 
English soldier to tingle in his veins. There 
are sentences that leap out with all the radiance 
of lightning and with all the power and energy 
of a trumpet blast. 

I call to mind one such sentence with 
which I close this sermon. It comes from 
one who illustrated in his own character 
all of these qualities of which I have been 
speaking; one whose reach of nature, outward 
and upward, was as splendid as has ever been 
exhibited in a single human life excepting 

111 



Dimensions of Manhood 

that of the Sou of God. This man, when 
when he would gather up all of his exhorta- 
tions into one great, splendid, burning sen- 
tence, when he would put the trumpet to his 
lips and sound a blast that should stir the 
hearts of those to whom he was speaking, this 
man gave forth only the one sentence, *'Quit 
you like men/' I leave that message with you, 
*'Quit you like men." Do not be satisfied 
to be merely moral men, be sympathetic men; 
do not be satisfied to be merely sympathetic 
men, but be high men, tall men, sun-crowned, 
who rise above the fog in public duty and in 
private thought. And may God create within 
the hearts of the young to whom I speak 
the ambition to be the highest order of men. 
I sometimes think, friends, it would be well 
for us in some form or other to revive the days 
of chivalry. There is something splendid in 
the occupation of Arthur and his Round Table, 
symbolical in meaning, and yet capable of be- 
ing translated, to some extent at least, in 
human life and in human conduct. What a 
splendid man is that King Arthur, who rever- 
ences his conscience as he reverences his God! 
Looking out over his company of knights and 
sending them forth as sworn servants of the 
king, men who would give up their lives glad- 
ly and willingly in order to aid the distressed 
or in order to maintain the high cause of honor 

112 



Dimensions of Manhood 

— oh, for men of this radiant type in the age 
in which we are living! We have some of 
them, as the instances to which I have re- 
ferred plainly show. We v/ant more of them; 
we want that we shall believe life is not worth 
living unless we are exemplifying these high 
qualities of manhood. If it be true that we 
live in deeds rather than words; if it be true 
that we count time by heart-throbs rather 
than by the tick of a clock; if it be true 
that he lives most who thinks most, feels 
the noblest, acts the best, then no life is 
worth living that does not exemplify and 
illustrate these qualities of manhood. I give 
you this message. Quit you like men. 
Go forth in this world as knights of honor, 
knights of truth, knights of purity, knights of 
sympathy, men whose presence shall gladden 
the world. And when you pass on to where 
beyond these voices there is rest and peace you 
shall be missed, not as a piece of furniture is 
missed, not as a picture on the wall is missed, 
but you shall be missed as the summer-time is 
missed, you shall be missed as the atmosphere 
is missed, you shall be missed as the breath of 
the flowers and as the inspiration which comes 
from music. May God help us and bless us in 
making the most of our lives! 



(fi) 113 



X 

"OUR LIBERTY IN CHRIST."* 

With freedom did Christ set us free: stand fast, therefore, and 
be not entangled ag^ain in a yoke of bondage. — Galatians 5:1. 

It lias been said that the epistle to the Gala- 
tians is the most vehement and impetuous of 
all the writings of the great apostle. It is a 
magnificent vindication of our liberty in Christ. 
Its motto might be, *'He is a freeman whom 
the truth makes free, and all are slaves be- 
sides/' 

Its utterances rouse us like the blast of a 
trumpet. One can almost imagine himself 
back in '76 when our forefathers spelled this 
great word 'liberty'' in fire and blood. It is a 
splendid protest against legal slavery and a 
ringing, joyous affirmation of gospel freedom. 
One catches the intense passion which throbs 
in every line of this great utterance. To those 
who would pervert this gospel of freedom, the 
writer thunders: ''Let such be anathema." 
Our text reveals the deepest and intensest feel- 
ing. It is like the quick, sharp command of 
the general in a moment of peril, ''Stand fast, 
therefore, and be not entangled again in a yoke 



*Delivered at the inauguration of Burris A. Jenkins as President of 
Kentucky University. 

114 



Our Liberty in Christ 

of bondage.'' The whole epistle vibrates with 
the excitement of the man who will give his 
last drop of blood rather than surrender his 
precious heritage of liberty. About other mat- 
ters the apostle may be calm, but when the 
rights of the soul in Christ are threatened, the 
strong man rouses himself for battle. 

In what does this liberty consist? Rather, 
what is its character — its distinguishing feature? 
In a word, it is liberty within limitations, and 
those limitations are all within the mighty 
sweep and circumference of Christ. It involves, 
in the first place, the removal of restraints. 
The apostle is thinking of the galling yoke of 
Judaism with its outward ordinances and ex- 
ternal requirements — the bondage of material- 
ism. He claims that these restrictions have 
been removed through Christ. He claims that 
the Mosaic law, as respects its rites and cere- 
monies, had served its mission in leading these 
Galatians to Christ. And now, in the name of 
Christ, he claims exemption for himself and 
his brethren from these restraints upon Chris- 
tian development. We may infeo: from this 
contention of the apostle that liberty in Christ 
contemplates the removal of all restraints that 
hinder the largest and richest unfolding of our 
spiritual life. Whatever interferes with the 
integrity of the soul, whatever hinders the 
exercise of our faculties and powers in harmony 

115 



Our Liberty in Christ 

with their nature and constitution, whatever 
dwarfs rather than expands the mental and 
spiritual life, whatever bars our advancement 
as we press on to perfection — from all such re- 
straints, we are set free with the freedom of 
Christ. The same argument that the apostle 
here makes against the unjust restrictions of 
Judaism can be made by the Christian man 
against any government that does not recog- 
nize the inherent rights of the soul; against 
ecclesiastical imperialism; against propositional 
creeds that are m.ade tests of fellowship and 
orthodoxy; against all dwarfing, narrowing and 
repressive agencies and influences inconsistent 
with the laro^eness of that libertv which is ours 
in Christ Jesus. 

But let us not suppose that this liberty in 
Christ is a dashing, hot-headed, reckless li- 
cense. While it involves the breaking of 
bonds which fetter, it contemplates no less 
certainly the imposition of bonds which train 
and discipline. Liberty has been defined as 
*'the fullest opportunity for man to be and do 
the very best that is possible for him.'' But 
this means restraint, for, says the writer who 
gives us the definition, * 'everything which is 
necessary for the full realization of a man's life, 
even though it seems to have the character of 
restraint for a moment, is really a part of the 
process of his enfranchisement — the bringing 

116 



Our Liberty in Christ 

forth of him to a fuller life." And so the 
liberty for which the apostle is making his 
splendid fight is liberty within the limitations 
imposed by the life and teachings and spirit 
and authority of Jesus Christ. It is liberty in 
Christ. 

Here is our safeguard against intellectual as 
well as moral license. No hand can stay the 
intellect in its excursions save the pierced hand 
of the Son of God — and if we accept the liberty 
which he has granted the mind of man, the 
whole realm of truth and duty is our territory. 
Under his touch those who have dwelt in the 
shadow of servile fear have seen a great light. 
Liberty of thought, under his guidance, is not 
narrowing the realm of thought, not the con- 
stant iteration of a negative, '^I don't believe 
this," or *'I don't believe that," but it is the 
mind claiming for itself ever new and vaster 
ranges for its exercise. It is that openness of 
mind which would not have any truth which 
it can appropriate to its advantage shut out 
from its hospitality. The point upon which 
emphasis is placed, however, is this: Our 
liberty of thought is in Christ. And so of free- 
dom of speech, freedom of the press — all must 
be brought under the mind of Christ, else we 
shall have no true liberty. True liberty is to 
be found as expressed and manifested in the 
highest, holiest, divinest manhood. We can 

117 



Our Liberty in Christ 

have no liberty save through law, and that 
law in its final analysis must be the law of life 
which is in Christ Jesus. Evermore let us 
remember that the restraints which he imposes 
are the means of enfranchisement. '^Every re- 
straint is but the setting free of a new power. 
Every commandment obeyed is entrance into 
larger life, every discipline endured is increase 
of power." Kentucky University stands for 
freedom of speech, freedom of thought, freedom 
of conscience, freedom of the press, freedom of 
the whole life — all within the limitations im- 
posed by the mind of the Master. I would 
have inscribed over the door of this university: 

'*No other Lord but Thee we'll own, 
No other name but thine confess." 

And so shall be fulfilled the dream of ^Hhose 
educated men and women" of the elder time 
who came into this western wilderness, those 
**real founders and builders of the great com- 
monwealth of Kentucky" — the dream which a 
certain distinguished novelist seems to think 
has not come true — ''that of the establishment 
of a broad, free institution of learning — meas- 
ure of the height and breadth of the better 
times: Knowing no north, no south, no lati- 
tude, creed, bias or political end." Any in- 
stitution which seeks a liberty beyond the 
largeness of the liberty which is in Christ must 
be atheistic and anarchistic. It is like a bird 

118 



Our Liberty in Christ 

seeking other liberty than that which the air 
affords, like the fish seeking other liberty than 
that of the boundless and immeasurable sea. 
And now, let us consider more particularly 
some of the characteristics of this liberty in 
Christ. 

First: — -You will observe, that it is liberty 
through authority. In closing this epistle, 
like a man who has fought his way through 
the ranks of the enemy and who himself at last 
breathes the air of liberty, the apostle hurls 
back the challenge: ''From henceforth let no 
man trouble me: for I bear branded on my body 
the marks of Jesus." His claim of independ- 
ence is based on the fact that he was owned by 
Jesus Christ — the marks on his body evidenc- 
ing whose he was and whom he served. His 
loyalty to Christ was the ground of his liberty. 
We cannot serve two or a hundred masters. 
When we have found one master, whether that 
master be sin or righteousness, we are freed 
from all other masters. On this principle we 
are freed from the law. A thousand claimants 
stand about us asking for our allegiance. Sin 
would like to own us. Ecclesiastical authority 
would like to dominate us. Tradition puts in 
its bid. The creeds ask for our intellectual 
submission. The dogmatist says: ''I have 
spoken, let all the earth be silent before me. 
Bow to my will and receive my inerrant con- 

119 



Our Liberty in Christ 

elusions." The higher eritic says: *'Now is 
the aecepted time, now is the day of your 
intelleetual salvation; yield to the advanced 
thought of the advanced time." Secular 
philosophy reminds us that we are still *4ii 
the gall of bitterness and the bond of ini- 
quity," unless we forswear all faith in the 
supernatural and bow to impersonal law as 
the presiding genius of the universe. And 
besides all these claimants are the new '4sms" 
and ^'sciences"— each offering its specific 
and nostrum for the woes of the world and 
each asking that we fall down and worship 
before its shrine. How shall we attain unto 
liberty? And the answer comes: By giving 
your allegiance to One, you are free from all 
others. There is no liberty for us save as we 
swear unfaltering, undying and everlasting 
allegiance unto Him whose right alone it is to 
rule us. Find your true Master and you have 
found your freedom. Because Jesus Christ 
alone is our Master, we refuse to dishonor his 
sovereignty by submitting to the bondage of 
other tests of fellowship and orthodoxy than 
our devotion to him. How strongly does the 
apostle in this epistle resent the acceptance of 
circumcision as a test of Christian character! 
And in so doing he throws out of court all tests 
of fellowship other than loyalty to Christ. He 
says, *^but not even Titus who was with me, 

120 



Our Liberty in Christ 

being a Greek, was compelled to be circum- 
cised: and that because of the false brethren 
privily brought in, who came in privily to spy 
out our liberty which we have in Christ Jesus, 
that they might bring us into bondage: to 
whom we gave place in the way of subjection, 
no, not for an hour; that the truth of the gospel 
might continue with you." The acceptance 
of the authority of Christ frees us from any 
other authority. 

Because we have found our true Master in 
Christ, the only one whose frown we need to 
fear and whose smile is heaven, we are freed 
from the fear of men. Hear the apostle: *'Am 
I seeking to please men? If I were still pleas- 
ing men, I should not be a servant of Christ." 
In our loving, loyal acceptance of Jesus Christ 
as Master — Lord of our conscience and our life 
— is to be found true liberty, freedom from all 
other claimants, whether disguised as friends 
or openly declared foes; freedom from all false 
tests of fellowship and orthodoxy, and freedom 
from that fear of man which develops hypoc- 
risy and unfits us to serve that sovereign whose 
name is Truth. 

Another characteristic of this liberty is serv- 
ice — yea it is liberty through service. As the 
ice is freed from its winter bondage, when it 
feels the warm kiss of the sun and goes forth in 
refreshing streams to bless the world; as the bit 

121 



Our Liberty in Christ 

of iron is in the bondage of uselessness until it 
is fitted into the machinery and by serving 
fulfills its mission and attains unto its freedom, 
so our liberty is to be found in service, for not 
until then have we discovered the meaning of 
existence. The ship is not free until she gives 
herself to the sea for which she was built and 
upon whose waters she can realize the meaning 
of her plan and construction. The mighty 
forces of nature have been freed by being har- 
nessed for the world's uses. Emerson says: 
* 'Justice has already been done to steam, to 
iron, to wood, to coal, to loadstone, to iodine, 
to corn and cotton, but how few materials are 
yet used by our arts! The mass of creatures 
and of qualities is still hid and expectant. It 
would seem as if each waited, like the en- 
chanted princess in fairy tales, for a destined 
human deliverer. Each must be disenchanted 
and walk forth to the day in human shape." 

And what does this mean but freeing the 
resources of nature by setting them their task 
to perform? What is it but the deliverance of 
the groaning creation into the glorious liberty 
of the sons of God? And so Christ sets free 
our powers by sending them forth from their 
imprisonment into the large realm of service 
and duty — the imagination to paint pictures 
and fashion cathedrals; the intellect to energize 
with great ideas some discouraged division in 

122 



Our Liberty in Christ 

the great army of progress; the will to proclaim 
its mighty fiat, '4t shall be done"; the heart to 
send forth its love and sympathy for the com- 
fort and healing of the nations. 

In this time of social discontent when the 
burdens are very heavy and piteous cries come 
to us from shop and slum and factory; in this 
day of intellectual unrest when men are asking 
for a faith that shall be unto them wisdom, 
power, righteousness and joy; in this hour of 
great needs intensified by our complex civiliza- 
tion, surely no better motto could be adopted 
by a Christian university than this: lyiberty 
through service. ^'If the Son shall thus make 
you free, you shall be free indeed." *'What 
does it mean," asks Mr. Peabody, *'that the 
last and best conception of philanthrophy, the 
simple method of residence among the poor 
and the consequent contagion of the cultivated 
life, is a university idea, originated by univer- 
sity men and spreading through the cities of 
Great Britain and America under the name of 
university settlements? It means that the 
signs of the time are discerned at last by the 
academic world and the selfishness of the scholar 
is being cast out by the spirit of the age. 
The very joy of education in our day to any 
open-minded man is the added power it gives 
to be of use among the needs of the modern 
world and to this joy the university welcomes 

123 



Our Liberty in Christ 

its new comers as they crowd her gates to-day." 
If I speak to those who contemplate entering 
the ministry in contradistinction to entering 
the clerical profession, then let me congratulate 
you on the magnificent liberty which may be 
yours through such ministry — for as says a 
literary prophet — ^'the day of the minister has 
come; the day of the priest is dead." As you 
serve you shall know the meaning of the liber- 
ty that is in Christ Jesus and you will ask no 
other or larger liberty. 

But this liberty in all of its forms, comes 
through the appropriation and incorporation of 
the Christ life. It is Christ in us who sets us 
free. The whole story is told in that great 
word from this same epistle, '^Yet I live, and 
yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me: and 
that life which I now live in the flesh, I live in 
faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, 
who loved me and gave himself for me." 
It is the indwelling Christ who is made unto 
us wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and re- 
demption. When Christ comes into the soul as 
an energizing presence, then it is his life in us 
that frees from selfish aims and purposes, from 
self-satisfaction and all that hinders aspiration, 
from low ideals and all that degrades and dis- 
honors human nature. It is Christ in us who 
sets us free from the power of reigning sin and 
from ^'the flesh, with the passions and the lusts 

124 



Our Liberty in Christ 

thereof." It is Christ in us who puts all our 
faculties and powers to work and so through 
service gives them liberty. 

It is not enough that we accept Christ as an 
intellectual possession, or as the object of our sin- 
cere admiration and praise, or as the heart and 
centre of our theology. He must be in us as 
energy, as inspiration, as power, the life of our 
life, the explanation of all our thinking and 
feeling and doing. It is this divine life within 
us that frees us. How joyous is this liberty! 
It is the liberty which the bird feels when it be- 
comes conscious of wings; it is the liberty of 
health, of bouyanf, enthusiastic life. How 
simple is this liberty! St. Augustine said, 
**IvOve, and do as you please,'' for love will not 
please to do that which is inconsistent with its 
own nature. So we may say, ^'lyct Christ live 
in you, and do as you please, think as 
you please, live as you please; for 
thought, life and pursuits would then all be 
Christlike. How strong is this liberty! The 
wall needs to be propped because it has no in- 
herent life; the tree stands erect because the life 
current throbs through root and trunk and 
branch. And so because the life of Christ is in 
us, we do not need prohibitions and statutory 
enactments. We stand strong in the life of 
Christ within us. We are free from the Law. 
And who does not see that this liberty must be- 

125 



Our Liberty in Christ 

come richer and fuller with the passing years as 
the Christ life is more fully formed and more 
consciously felt? This is true not only as re- 
spects character but equally true as respects 
Christian thought. Dr. Gordon has said with 
truth, ^^A revolution has already been accom- 
plished — for the most part peacefully and beau- 
tifully — in the fundamental thoughts of intel- 
ligent believers; the church has already moved, 
almost unconsciously, but still truly, out of the 
old, narrow world into the new and vast world 
of our modern intelligence. All reflective dis- 
ciples of Christ have been moving into a new 
realm of thought and feeling, and like men on 
an ocean voyage they hardly know how far they 
have come. The same sun and moon and stars 
and sea seem to make the fact of progress in- 
significant; but the day arrives when a new ter- 
ritory is sighted and the reality of advance can 
no longer be doubted. The abiding facts in 
Christian faith, the permanent forces in Chris- 
tian experience, the everlasting lights in the 
firmament of Christian truth and the change- 
less element of feeling in which all genuine dis- 
ciples of the Master live and move, tend not in- 
frequently to obscure the reality of movement 
from less to more. But there come hours of in- 
evitable comparison, when the w^ork of time for 
the Christian consciousness stands out in un- 
mistakable greatness, when new thoughts, 

126 



Our Liberty in Christ 

wider purposes, vaster enterprises make the 
fact of emergence into a new world no longer 
deniable." It would be strange were it other- 
wise. As we grow up into Christ, we neces- 
sarily grow out of much in character and 
thought which once fitted our capacity, but 
from which we are now free, because outgrown. 
Our growing and ripening experience in Christ 
is ever giving unto us a more splendid outlook, 
vaster perspective. It is freedom through 
growth, through advancing life, through a 
growing intimacy with our divine I^ord and 
Master, through higher fellowship with Him, 
thus raising us to higher planes of thought and 
feeling. 

He who lives with Christ, whose life is lost in 
the life of Christ, must ever be expectant of new 
things, of radiant and blessed surprises. ''Our 
horizons vary in extent with the altitude we 
reach," and so the higher we go with Jesus the 
more splendid our vision and the more complete 
our freedom from the things we have left below 
us, save as these lower things have fitted us t~ 
enjoy the wider prospect. 

On this day of gratulation when we extend 
the hand of welcome to our new president and 
set him apart to his high and honorable work 
with our good wishes and prayers, it seemed to 
me appropriate to consider the great text already 
announced as bringing before us the end and 

Ml 



Our Liberty in Christ 

aim of all true education, viz.: the enfranchise- 
ment of the soul, liberty in all the high and 
best uses of the word. The supreme ministry 
of a Christian university must be to impart 
knowledge in order that the mind may be set 
free to enter into larger truth; in order that the 
life may be set free to enter into larger service; 
in order that the whole man may be set free to 
realize the possibilities of his nature. Liberty 
is the end and aim of all true culture, as it is 
the end and aim of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 
Some one has defined religion as '^the art of 
living; it is knowing how to use eye and hand 
and foot; how to use intellect, fancy and imag- 
ination; how to use conscience, faith, reverence, 
hope and love; how to employ all the activities 
of life for spiritual ends and in obedience to 
spiritual laws." And this '^knowing how" is 
liberty and the teacher is Christ. 

May president, faculty and student body give 
to Him the supreme place, and when it shall 
''be noised abroad" that Christ is in the uni- 
versity — more consciously and intensely than 
ever before — shall not eager students crowd our 
gates, even as the multitude tiod one upon 
another in the long ago when the rumor spread, 
**He is in the House"? 



128 



XI 

THE SPECIFIC FOR BEAUTY 

(A Commencement Address.) 

The beauty of woman has ever been the 
theme of poets and lovers and will be so long as 
rivers flow and winds blow— the grace of her 
step, the luster of her eye, and the bewitching, 
entrancing spell of all her charms. Such beauty 
is physical and we admire it as we do '^the 
colored sunsets and the starry heavens, the 
beautiful mountains and the shining seas, the 
fragrant woods and the painted flowers." One 
Would no more depreciate lovely eyes, drooping 
lashes, a perfect face or a graceful form than 
he would seek to disparage the blushes of a rose 
or the hues of the rainbow. Beauty, in all of 
Its manifestations, is the gift of the All-beautiful 
one — and we are, therefore, permitted to rejoice 
In its radiant and inspiring presence in the 
world. But unless physical beauty is recognized 
as a divine gift, leading its possessor to honor it 
as a sacred responsibility, it becomes more de- 
structive than dynamite and more dangerous 
than distilled poison. The story, as told by 

history, of beauty divorced from duty, has in it 
(9) 129 



The Specific for Beauty 

all the elements of awful tragedy. Such beauty 
walks hand in hand with anguish down through 
the centuries. 

It is my purpose, however, at this time, to 
speak of beauty animated by duty, inspired by 
the spirit of goodness, glorified by love and 
helpfulness, touching the world's life on its 
better and diviner side, awakening by its pres- 
ence and smiles the angel in humanity and 
evoking from this humanity its slumbering 
music, even as Memnon drew melodies from the 
lips of morn. It is the * 'beauty of holiness '' of 
which I wish you to think and to which I 
would have your ambition directed. Holiness 
alone can make physical beauty a safe posses- 
sion. It alone can change the siren into a 
savior. It alone can transform a Delilah into a 
Dorcas, and so make beauty a helpful rather 
than a destructive influence in the world. 

In this address, I shall try to show that holi- 
ness is beautiful in itself; that it beautifies the 
human countenance; and that it is the condition 
of our appreciation of the beautiful ministries 
that enter so largely into the education and cul- 
ture of our souls. Let it be understood in the 
outset that by holiness is not meant sanctimo- 
niousness or that saintliness which is too good 
for human nature's daily employments and en- 
joyments. I do not mean by it ''goodyism" or 
^'amiable tameness,'' or insipid commonplace. 

130 



The Specific for Beauty 

I would not have you associate it with ''sack- 
cloth and ashes, '^ or with the suppression or im- 
prisonment of all natural instincts and desires. 
On the contrary, it is virile and strong. It is 
not only good — but good for something. It is 
brave and rejoicing. It walks with a firm step 
and has ''the bare, bold brow'' which "is 
better than the clasp of a coronet." As an- 
other has said: "It does not humiliate; it glad- 
dens. It is ardent with heart and passion. It 
is brilliant with imagination. It is fragrant 
with taste and grace." In a word, it is com- 
patible v/ith the very highest culture and the 
noblest achievements, and is the condition of all 
true and worthy development. Following the 
order of thought indicated, I remark in the first 
place that holiness is intrinsically beautiful. It 
is beautiful because it is natural. Man is made 
in the image of God and has therefore a capacity 
for holiness — -has the germs of holiness in his 
nature. Holiness is not something added on to 
man, but is the development of that which he 
already has. It is the growth and expansion of 
the seed, planted in our creation, by the divine 
hand. It is, therefore, part of our nature. It 
is natural. 

And it is because goodness is natural that it 
is beautiful. Whatever is growing in the line 
of its nature — in harmony with what it was in- 
tended to be — calls forth our admiration. Hence 



The Specific for Beauty 

health is beautiful and disease is repulsive. 
We were made to be healthful and not diseased. 
Hence a full grown physical frame is beautiful 
and a dwarfed body is painful to behold. We 
cannot find pleasure in that which is monstrous 
or abnormal. And it is because man is develop- 
ing along the line of his real nature in being 
good that holiness is beautiful and evil is re- 
pulsive. Goodness is normal; wickedness is 
unnatural. It is the nature of a snake to be 
sinuous and accordingly we admire its sinu- 
osity; it is the nature of the soul to be good 
and we therefore admire purity, self-sacrifice 
and every good deed which marks the progress 
of humanity. The call of religion to holiness 
is the call to be natural — to cease to pervert the 
soul and by its perversion to make it deformed 
and repulsive. The beauty of holiness is the 
beauty of healthfulness — the beauty of natural- 
ness. A twisted limb is not more repulsive 
than a twisted soul. Holiness is therefore not 
an arbitrary appointment of the Almighty, but 
the development of the soul in harmony with 
its constitution, and is consequently natural and 
beautiful. 

But not only is holiness beautiful in itself; it 
is productive of physical beauty. I do not say 
that goodness is a universal specific for physical 
beauty, but that it leaves its impress on the 
human countenance I cannot doubt. There is 

132 



The Specific for Beauty 

an intimate connection between the soul and 
the bod}^ A beautiful soul helps to make a 
beautiful body. Is there not found a partial ex- 
planation of the transfiguration of Jesus in this 
principle? This sudden brightness of counte- 
nance was the outshining of his perfect holi- 
ness; the pent-up glory within sought this ex- 
ternal manifestation. The painter who crowns 
his saint with an aureole of brightness, rec- 
ognizes the relation which exists between 
holiness and light; between goodness and 
brightness. Why do the Scriptures associate 
these two things in describing the Al- 
mighty — his holiness and physical light? '*He 
clothes himself with light as with a garment." 
The perfection of his character makes his per- 
son luminous to the mind of the inspired writers. 
After long communion with God on the sacred 
mount we are told that ^^ Moses wist not that the 
skin of his face shone." But the shining was 
none the less apparent to all who looked upon 
it. It was the exalted spirit of the prophet 
transfiguring the responsive countenance; and 
so we see in our own observation the invisible 
artist — holiness — beautifying the human face, 
lighting it up with a glory that never shone on 
land or sea. *^In one of our modern novels," 
says a writer, ^^a young American artist, bril- 
liant, unprincipled, conceited, has been living 
a wholly selfish life in Rome for some time, 

133 



Tne Specific for Beauty 

when his mother and her adopted daughter 
came from America to visit him. And the first 
time he sees them — simple, pious, loving folk, 
who have been living in constant anxiety for 
his sake — he suddenly turns to his mother in 
the middle of a sentence and asks abruptly — 
^Wliat has happened to your face these two 
years? It has changed its expression.' 'Your 
mother has prayed a good deal,' said the sister 
simply. ^Well, it makes a very good face,' an- 
swered the brother, ^very interesting, very 
solemn. It has very fine lines to it.' " So 
holiness glorifies and beautifies the human 
countenance. 

*'For of the soul the body form doth take, 
For soul is form and doth the body make." 

Longfellow recognizes this thought in de- 
scribing one of his characters — '^She was a 
beautiful girl of sixteen, with black hair and 
dark, lovely eyes and a face that had a story to 
tell. How different faces are in this particular! 
Some of them speak not. They are books in 
which not a line is written, save perhaps a date. 
Others are great family Bibles, with all the Old 
and New Testament written in them. Others 
are Mother Goose and nursery tales; others are 
bad tragedies or pickle herring farces, and 
others, like that of the landlady's daughter at 
the Star, sweet love anthologies and songs of 
the affections." All of which means to declare 

134 



The Specific for Beauty 

that the face tells the story of the soul — that a 
beautiful and noble soul makes a beautiful and 
noble face. Let us observe the working of this 
principle by a consideration of some of the ele- 
ments of holiness. Take, for instance, purity. 
*'As a stream leaves its residuum upon its bed, 
the green of sulphur, the red of iron, the glitter 
of gold, on the very pebbles that lie in its chan- 
nel, '^ so pure and noble and generous thoughts as 
certainly leave their impress on the human 
countenance. A bright thought overspreads the 
face with brightness as though it had been 
kissed by the smile of God. The face takes on 
the hue and color of that upon which our 
thoughts dwell. Transient thoughts even make 
themselves visible on the face — now bright, now 
dark, now gentle, now severe, like — 

*The Queen of Spring, as she passed thro' the vale, 
Left her robe on the trees and her breath on the gale." 

Much more does the face become the medium 
of expression of a fixed mental state. Purity of 
heart most certainly, therefore, tends to beauty 
of countenance. Blessed is that life of which 
it may be said: ''Her soul was guarded by 
good angels as sweet seclusions for holy thoughts 
and prayers and all good purposes, wherein pious 
wishes dwelt like nuns and every image was a 
saint.'' Or, as another poet exhorts: '^Let 
sweet thoughts swarm about your soul as bees 

135 



The Specific for Beauty 

about their queen." The face through which 
such a soul finds expression can but be beautiful. 
Purity gives clearness to the eye, repose to the 
countenance and indescribable delicacy of ex- 
pression. A refined face is the product of this 
invisible purity — a purity which transfers from 
the laboratory of the soul to the outward man 
the hues and colors of its own constitution, even 
as the sky transfers its own glory of color to the 
face of a violet. The thought could not be 
better expressed than in these lines: 

**Her pure and eloquent blood 

Spoke in her cheeks, 
And so distinctly wrought 

That one might say 
Her body thought." 

Or, think for a moment of the influence of 
self-sacrifice in the production of beauty. Bal- 
zac represents '^a young man as becoming the 
possessor of a magic skin, the peculiarity of 
which is that, while it bestows on its possessor 
the power to gratify every wish or whim, with 
every such gratification the skin itself shrinks 
in all its dimensions." Is there not a literal 
truth in the fable? Selfishness contracts and 
narrows the lines of the face and brands its pos- 
sessor's countenance with the marks of his 
master. And so the physiognomy of the miser 
is as clearly discerned as the face of the sky — 
his cunning and scheming eyes, his pinched and 

136 



The Specific for Beauty 

wizened face. * ^ As clear as the scratches on the 
rock which make us sure that the glacier has 
ground its way along its face," so clearly does 
selfishness leave its ugly marks on the human 
body. And so self-sacrifice, as the artist to 
whom reference has been made observed, makes 
fine lines on the face. 

But I cannot pursue this line of thought 
further. I might speak of the influence of 
hope — hope which * ^flushed in her temple and 
her eyes," but must rather call your attention 
in conclusion to holiness as the condition of 
that culture which comes from the spiritual use 
of the ministries which form so large a part of 
our environment. In proportion as we are de- 
veloped in purity truth and goodness will we be 
able to recognize and claim the ministries of 
nature, music, art and literature. To him who 
has trained only his intellect, music is little more 
than a combination of sounds, but to him who 
has the cultivated intellect and a heart in line 
with spiritual beauty, ''Music," as George Mac- 
Donald tells us, *'is poetry in solution, and gen- 
erates that infinite atmosphere common to both 
musician and poet, which the latter fills with 
shining worlds." Such an one can appreciate 
the spiritual meaning of music and so realize 
the description of a certain character — ^Svhen 
she would worship God, it was in music tl\at 
she found the chariot of fire in which to as- 

137 



The Specific for Beauty 
cend heavenward." Then, as you listen — 

"Memories home within the music, 

Stealing through the bars, 
Thoughts within the quiet spaces, 

Rise and set like stars," 

So in the ministry of nature. There must be 
heart-vision to appreciate its beauty. One who 
is worldly in thought and trivial in all his 
feelings and tastes can find no *4orm or come- 
liness" in flower or field. But to the soul that 
loves truth and beauty, this natural world is 
''but the robe in which the infinite clothes his 
loveliness." 

"Never a daisy that grows, 
But a mystery guideth the growing; 

Never a river that flows. 
But a majesty sceptres the flowing." 

Only the pure in heart can see God in nature 
or elsewhere. ^The true poet is a God's man — 

•'He walks with God upon the hills 
And sees each morn the world arise 
New bathed in light of Paradise." 

Consider the difference between the scientific 
study of a star and the spiritual meaning seized 
by him whose heart is crying out for the divine. 
The one has to say: 

"Twinkle, twinkle, little star, 

I don't wonder what you are, 
What you are, I know quite well. 

And your component parts can tell." 

The star has been weighed in the balances. 
Its wonder has departed. The mystery is dis- 
sipated. The poet on the other hand — the man 

138 



The Specific for Beauty 

whose soul craves the beauty of holiness — looks 
up to heaven, so dim and far, and out of the sky, 
resplendent with stars, he chooses one for his 
own special preacher-— 

"O, star of strength, I see thee stand 

And smile upon my pain, 
Thou beckonest with thy mailed hand. 

And I am strong again." 

Holiness gives spiritual vision. It sees more 
in heaven and in earth than is dreamed of in 
the philosophy of the schools. *^0n one oc- 
casion there was a man looking at Turner's 
pictures. He gazed at the beautiful sunset 
views and the beautiful sea views and at last he 
said: 'These are all fanciful, the product of the 
artist's imagination. I never could see any- 
thing in the sunset like that.' Turner, as the 
story goes, was present, and answered, 'No, you 
could see nothing like that, but don't you wish 
you could?'" No materialist, whose spiritual 
nature has been neglected, can see anything 
more than canvas and paint. But it is just this 
power to see that distinguishes one man from 
another. It is the difference between littleness 
and greatness. It is the difference between 
genius and talent. The faculty of vision is our 
divine inheritance. L<et it be cultivated, and 
life will be transfigured and the world for us be 
made to shine with the glory of God. 



139 



XII 
"YOUR OWN, OR ANOTHER'S— WHICH?" 

"Ye are not your own: for ye are bought with a price." 1C0R.6:19. 

I invite attention to a clause found in the 
nineteentli verse of the sixth chapter of First 
Corinthians: ^^Ye are not your own; for ye are 
bought with a price.'' Nothing stands alone. 
Each thing, whether it be an atom or a world, 
is related to some other thing in the mighty 
domain of creation. Nowhere can there be 
found unrelated existence or isolated being. 
Things great and small, vast and insignificant, 
are alike affected by this law of mutual connec- 
tion and dependence. The stars move on in 
their respective orbits, singing their respective 
songs, but each song is only a part of one song 
and each note a part . of the one glorious 
anthem: ''The hand that made us is divine." 
Creation is one vast circle, and all things are 
swept into it and form part of its mighty cir- 
cumference. 

It is likewise true that all conscious life is 
related. The life of each man is so interwoven 
with the lives of all men, so bound up in the re- 
lationships and obligations of human society, 

140 



Your Own, or Another's — Which? 

that the truth of our text is at once apparent. 
We are not our own; we belong to the world — 
to our country, to our State, to our city, to the 
men and women who form our social environ- 
ment. There is no escape from the law of 
human relationship. In its lower forms it must 
be honored if we would maintain physical 
existence. In its higher form it must be ac- 
knowledged if we would maintain our moral 
self-respect. 

But growing out of this law of human re- 
lationship, and involved in it, is that strange, 
subtle, mysterious thing we call influence, 
which links our lives, whether we will it so or 
not, to the lives of ourfellowmen. Each life is 
a blot radiating darkness or a sun radiating 
light. Each life is a harmonious note in the 
world's music or a jarring discord. Each life is 
a wave on the great sea of humanity, setting in 
motion other waves that go on in never ending 
circles until they strike the shore of eternity. 
The person influenced owns us to the extent 
that he has the right to demand that the in- 
fluence exerted by us shall not be hurtful. Life 
can no more exist unto itself than can the sun 
shine for itself or the flowers give fragrance for 
themselves. Never was there a profounder ut- 
terance, than that of the inspired writer when, 
seeking to make us feel the awful responsibility 
of this earthly existence, he says unto us: ^*No 

141 



Your Own, or Another's — Which? 

man Hveth unto himself.'^ Each of us is in 
very truth his brother's keeper, and each of us 
is owned by the other to the extent that each of 
us is called upon to exert only a helpful in- 
fluence in relation to others. 

But, as a general proposition, the truth of the 
text is established in the conscience of every 
man as he goes about the daily tasks which 
claim him. All of us know ourselves to be 
owned by some master. That master may be 
a principle, a passion, or a person. One man 
serves ambition and recognizes ambition as his 
master. Another man is the bond slave of 
business. Still another man is the servant of 
pleasure. Says the Apostle, ' 'Know ye not that 
to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, 
his servants ye are whom ye obey, whether of 
sin unto death or of obedience unto righteous- 
ness?'' It is not a question as to whether or 
not we shall have a master. We all have 
masters. The supreme question concerns the 
character of the master whom we shall be will- 
ing to serve. In this splendid text, so far-reach- 
ing in its significance, the inspired writer is 
bidding us to give in our allegiance to Jesus 
Christ as the one only person who has the right 
to reign over and to rule our lives. 

So far as Christian men are concerned we ac- 
knowledge this allegiance to Jesus Christ. We 
are his sworn servants. We have pledged 

142 



Your Own, or Another's — Which? 

loyalty with the heavens bending over us; in 
the presence of many witnesses we have sworn 
to accept him for life and for death and for 
eternity. But what about the claims of this 
Christ upon humanity? Has he the right to 
reign over the lives of all men? 

It is not proper, in view of the purpose of this 
sermon, to enter into any elaborate argument as 
to the claims of Jesus Christ upon humanity; 
but I want to say that he owns all men because 
he has loved them. In his unparalleled sacri- 
fice there is a claim on the affections and on the 
obedience of all men. After all, the imperial 
guard of the ages and of the centuries is made up 
of the men who have suffered and toiled and 
wrought for humanity. The men of the thorn 
crown are those who dominate the race. The 
martyrs rule us from their tombs. Wherever 
blood has been shed of a sacrificial character, 
meaning thereby the betterment of humanity, 
that spot has become sacred, and upon that spot 
has been erected a throne. We honor the hill 
where Prescott fought and Warren fell, because 
that hill speaks of a devotion and self-sacrifice 
contributing to the carrying of the world just a 
little forward towards liberty, and the possible 
realization of the capacity of human nature for 
perfection. 

So the cross of Christ has become his throne. 
He wears the sceptre and the purple because 

143 



Your Own, or Another's — Which? 

he has been lifted up as the victim of man's 
hate and at the same time as the redemptive 
force of humanity. We owe all allegiance to 
Jesus Christ because he has loved us unto the 
uttermost. 

But, again, his character has a claim upon 
our allegiance. My friends, it is impossible for 
us to get away from the dominating control of 
righteousness. As Hamlet is the highest expres- 
sion in literature, as the Ninth Symphony is 
the highest expression in music, as the Par- 
thenon is the highest expression in architecture, 
so the life of Jesus Christ is the highest expres- 
sion of righteousness, and because he is the -in- 
carnation and supreme expression of righteous- 
ness, he dominates men. Wherever the voice 
of righteousness is heard men must bow to its 
authority. The authority of God is not the au- 
thority of omnipotence. It is the authority of 
goodness. If it were the authority of omnipo- 
tence, he could crush us, but he could not con- 
quer us. It is the authority of goodness, and 
conscience in every man answers to the call of 
righteousness, whether the man renders obedi- 
ence to righteousness in his life or not. So the 
claim of Christ upon every man is the claim of 
righteousness. 

Furthermore, Jesus owns men because he 
alone can satisfy the deepest needs of the human 
soul. In this sense, knowledge owns ignorance 

144 



Your Own, or Another's — Which? 

because it is that which ignorance needs. In 
this sense power owns weaknesss because 
power has that which weakness needs. In 
this sense the sun owns the seed bed, because 
without the sun the seed will remain in the 
ground and never come forth into beauty and 
blossom. We have needs — deep needs — of the 
human soul, which Jesus Christ alone can an- 
swer and fulfill. Therefore, he has a claim 
upon us. It is the claim of strength on 
weakness; it is the claim of knowledge on ignor- 
ance; it is the claim of genius on talent; 
it is the claim of light on vegetation; it is the 
claim of God on his dependent creatures. 

Well has the Apostle given this great truth, 
not to those who have pledged allegiance to 
Christ and with whom the matter may be set- 
tled, but to all men: **Ye are not your own, for 
ye have been bought with a great price." 

But what are the practical conclusions? If 
we belong to Christ at all we belong to him in 
all the relationships and pursuits and pleasures 
of life. If Christ owns the brain he owns every 
nerve and artery connected with the brain. If 
Christ owns the heart he owns every pulse beat. 
If Christ owns us in the sanctuary he owns us 
in the shop. If Christ is recognized as 
JMaster in the church he must be recognized as 
Master at the polls. If Jesus Christ is Lord of 
any part of us he is I^ord of every part of us, 
(10) 145 



Your Own, or Another's — Which? 

Shall we treat Christ as the Italian Govern- 
ment has treated the Pope? Shall we shut 
him up within four walls and say unto him: 
**Your sovereignty is to be confined to certain 
religious exercises and functions, and have 
nothing whatever to do with the great outlying 
life''? Do you suppose that the Master will 
accept any such miserable, paltry allegiance 
offered unto him by those who claim to be his 
professed followers? If Jesus Christ owns us at 
all, if he has the right over us in the least part, 
he has the right over us in the church and out 
of the church, while we are on bended knee and 
when we go to our business, and when we at- 
tend to our civic duties, under all circumstances, 
wherever we may be placed. 

But, you say, this is to confuse the secular 
and the sacred. There are certain things that 
are to be denominated sacred, and there are cer- 
tain other things which are to be denominated 
secular. I want to say this with all possible 
emphasis: There is no realm in God's universe 
that can properly be denominated secular save 
that realm over which the devil reigns. God 
has a right to every acre of land and to every 
agency and instrumentality employed by hu- 
manity, and if that acre of land is withheld 
from him, or if that agency and instrumentality 
are given over to evil, then we have made them 
secular. T^at which ought to have been di- 

146 



Your Own, or Another's— Which? 

vine, that which ought to have been sacred, we 
have cheapened by giving it over to the reign 
of Satan, which is the reign of evil. 

How shall we be delivered from the curse of 
a conventional Christianity? How is it pos- 
sible for us to come to understand that for 
Christ to own us is to have dominion over every 
part of our life? 

I want to say furthermore that if we belong 
to Christ we are free from all other masters. 
There is a note of magnificent independence in 
the utterance of the Apostle Paul. One day, 
rising up in his majesty, he turned to those 
who would own him and said unto them: ^^Let 
no man trouble me, for I belong to somebody 
else. I bear in my body the marks of the I^ord 
Jesus Christ." And as cattle when branded are 
known to belong unto such a master, so this 
man, being branded by the marks of his Master, 
declared thereby whose he was and whom he 
served; but, mark you, his claim to independ- 
ence is based upon his service of Christ. He 
owned to one master, therefore he was free 
from all other masters. There is no independ- 
ence for any soul of man until he finds a master 
who is worthy of him and capable of leading 
him and developing him in all the parts of his 
nature which need to be trained and disciplined 
and developed. 

We are told that such an one belongs to the 
147 



Your Own, or Another's — Which? 

Democratic party or to the Republican party. 
If he be a Christian he belongs to Christ and is 
free from every party save as that party rep- 
resents the spirit of Christ in civic affairs. We 
are told that such an one belongs to the church. 
He first belongs to Christ, and he is free from 
the church unless the church represents the 
spirit and life and aim and purpose of Jesus 
Christ. Let us say in very earnest, *'No other 
Lord but thee we will know, no other name but 
thine confess," then we shall enter into our 
true liberty. 

May I say also in this connection that if we 
belong to Christ we should serve him worthily? 
To use the illustration of another, here are men 
who are represented to us as belonging to Crom- 
weirs Ironsides. A battle is being waged. So 
soon as they get the scent of powder they take 
to their heels and run. We say to ourselves, 
'*There is some mistake here; these are not 
Cromweirs Ironsides. If these men belonged 
to Cromwell they would have Cromwell's spirit 
and CromwelPs courage. Theirs may be the 
conduct of perfumed cavaliers, but they do not 
belong to Cromwell.'* 

So it is, my friends, with those who are 
Christian citizens and acknowledge their al- 
legiance to this Christ whom they pledge to love 
and serve and obey even unto death. 

We have before us at this time the question 

148 



Your Own, or Another^s — Which? 

of civic righteousness — a very old question, but 
new now again. Here is a man who claims to 
belong to Jesus Christ. He claims to be not only 
a citizen, but a Christian citizen, and yet he re- 
fuses to go to the polls and vote. He refuses to 
serve on the juries when summoned if it is pos- 
sible for him to escape such service. He has not 
the courage of his convictions — the courage to 
come out in the open and to declare for thatwhich 
his soul endorses. He takes to cover whenever 
there is danger. He talks good citizenship and 
yet at the same time dishonors the Master who is 
Master over him in that realm no less than in the 
church. These men owned by Christ? Why, 
they have mistaken their master. They do not 
know the spirit of him who said, *' Render unto 
Caesar the things which are Caesar's," as well as 
**render unto God the things that are God's." 
Let us serve this Master worthily; let us re- 
member whose we are. Let the subject know the 
meaning of serving such royalty as that which 
is throned in the highest heavens. 

And, finally, if we belong to Christ, we are 
sure of protection and safety and victory. Here 
is a ship out on the high seas. She belongs 
to nobody. She has no cargo. She has no crew. 
She has no pilot. She is a derelict, and be- 
cause she is a derelict she is at the mercy of 
wind and wave, and presently shall surely be 
engulfed. Here is another ship owned and 

149 



Your Own, or Another's — Which? 

piloted. How she moves, like a thiug of l\fe, 
over the bounding waves! Yonder is her port, 
and with prow set steadily in that direction she 
goes as straight as an arrow to the mark. 
Somebody owns her, somebody is controlling 
every part and particle of her machinery. She 
has a master, and, therefore, she is safe. 

I have heard men say, *'I am my own master, 
I belong to myself." Like those self-sanctified 
Jews of long ago, they declared, ''We are in 
bondage to no man." Very well, accept your re- 
ward; you are at the mercy of your passions; 
you are at the mercy of your appetites; you are 
at the mercy of every outside call of influence 
that may come upon you. The masterful man 
is the mastered man. The man whose life goes 
on steadily and strongly and magnificently is 
the man who has found his master. If we 
would only recognize that claim of the Christ 
upon us, we should understand the secret of liv- 
ing because we are owned, we are safeguarded, 
by righteousness. Because the Christ is our 
Master we have about us the sustaining strength 
of the Eternal One; we shall go into port, we 
shall arrive. As surely as the omnipotent love is 
at the helm, just so surely no cause of righteous- 
ness has ever failed ultimately. As surely as 
the infinite God guides the stars in their courses 
quietly and calmly, just so surely righteousness 
shall be ultimately triumphant and God shall 

150 



Your Own, or Another's— Which? 

come into possession of his world — every knee 
shall bow and every tongue shall confess that 
Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the 
Father. 

What does your religion mean to you? Are 
you simply playing at religion? Are you simply 
going to church and indulging in a few re- 
ligious functions on Sunday? Are you in earnest 
in acknowledging the sway of Jesus Christ over 
your life? One church in this community with 
men and women in it who honestly believe 
that Jesus Christ has a right to rule over them 
everywhere and under all circumstances, would 
have the effect upon the community at large 
that the great gulf stream has upon the mighty 
waters through which it flows. May God burn 
this truth into our souls to-night — we who 
claim to be Christian men. You are not your 
own, you belong to the city. Do your duty to 
it. You belong to the State; see that you 
serve your master in that relationship properly 
and worthily. You belong unto the suffering 
and sorrowing and needy ones all about you 
and around you. lyive grandly, live victori- 
ously, live splendidly, as it is your privilege to 
live, if only you shall recognize the divine 
sovereignty. 

I call to mind these closing lines of a poem 
which suggests some discouragement, by the 

isi 



Your Own, or Another's — Which? 
way, but which reminds us of ultimate victory: 

** 'Tis weary watching, wave on wave, 

But yet the tide heaves onward; 
We build like corals, ^rave on grave, 

But pave a path that's sunward. 
Though beaten back in many a fray, 

Yet ever strength we'll borrow. 
And where the vanguard rests to-day. 

The rear will camp to-morrow." 

Christ is leading on. 



152 



XIII 
"THE MINISTER IN THE MARKET PLACE" 

"Therefore disputed he in the market daily with them that met 
with them.'' Acts 17:17. 

The market place of Athens was the resort 
of the crowds. It was the meeting place of 
philosophers and people. Here was represented 
the commerce of trade and the commerce of 
ideas. A writer brings the picture before us, when 
he tells us that men of all ranks and classes, 
of all pursuits and professions, met and jostled 
each other in that eager throng, of which De- 
mosthenes had said 400 hundred years before 
that it was more curious to hear the news or to 
learn the last excitement than to recognize the 
impending destruction of the liberties of the 
people. The dominant notes of the Athenian 
market place were democracy and indiffer- 
entism. The world of Athens and the spirit of 
Athens both found their expression in the 
market place. 

Now, the significant fact which explains 
the subject of our sermon is that the Apostle 
Paul went daily to the market place to proclaim 

153 



The Minister in the Market Place 

his message. He was a man of the people. He 
mingled with the crowd. He identified himself 
with the multitude. As Socrates, so Paul — 
both were street preachers. 

Let us remember that the great preacher of 
primitive Christianity was not kept from the 
market place by any thought of exclusive 
sacredness attached to a given place. His pulpit 
was movable. Wherever was assembled the crowd 
there was ready the preacher. As the hunter 
is mastered by the spirit of the chase, so this 
man was mastered by enthusiasm for hu- 
manity, and he cared not for the place or the 
surroundings, save as they might give him op- 
portunity to hold np the Christ whom he lovedc 
Field-preaching, street-preaching, is no modern 
device. It has been dignified by apostolic prac- 
tice; yea, more, by the constant practice of 
Jesus the Christ, the world's Savior, and Re- 
deemer. 

Nor was the Apostle kept from the market 
place by any thought of lowering his dignity 
in association with the multitude. We hear 
very much spoken of preserving the dignity of 
the pulpit. There is a stiff clericalism which 
is too prim for ornament and too cold for service. 
It cares more for functions than for folks. It 
cares more for respectability than for religion. 
It cares more for externalities than for realities. 
Paul would have been a dignified character 

154 



The Minister in the Market Place 

whether standing in the market place or in the 
presence of the Court of Areopagus. He would 
have been a sublime figure under any set of cir- 
cumstances because of his intense moral earn- 
estness and his tremendous passion for humanity. 
After all, what is demanded? What is true 
dignity? It is that fine quality which shows 
the man fitted for his task. It is ade- 
quateness, it is effectiveness in the presence 
of the thing that needs to be done. That 
painter is clothed upon with most dignity, 
who can best mix his colors and glorify 
his canvas. That diver is most digni- 
fied who can plunge to a sufficient depth to 
enable him to rescue the drowning man. He 
who claims to be a minister of the Gospel of 
Christ and who stands aloof from the people of 
the market place loses the only dignity to 
which he has any claim. 

Nor was Paul hindered in his association 
with the people by the thought that it was in- 
cumbent upon him to speak to his audience on 
a given day and at no other time. Daily, we 
read, he disputed with the people in the market 
place. Let us learn, my friends, that one can 
preach the gospel through his life no less than 
through the delivery of a message. The preacher 
.must represent his Master not only on a given 
day, and standing upon a definite platform, 
but in the smile of his face, in the good cheer 

155 



The Minister in the Market Place 

he may be able to impart, in the handgrasp, 
in the influence that goes forth from his per- 
sonal character as he meets and mingles with 
men in the market place daily. 

I am reminded furthermore that although 
Paul was a man of culture, he was a man of 
the people. This man who could hold his own 
with the philosophers, this man who knew 
Greek poetry, as is proven by a quotation 
in that marvelous address on Mars Hill; 
this man who was brought up at the feet 
of Gamaliel, this man who was at home 
in the presence of royalty, and who is 
a noble exemplification of graceful and elo- 
quent speech under the most trying emer- 
gencies — it is he whom we find in the 
market place. Any culture that stands aloof 
from the people is spurious. Of what avail is the 
masterpiece so long as it is veiled from the eyes 
that can catch inspiration as they look upon it? 
Of what avail is our boasted culture if it shall 
not go far enough down to elevate and ennoble 
and refine those w^ho are in need of it? Of 
what avail is a great book that may be writ- 
ten unless it shall give forth a great truth that 
shall stir the pulses of men and lead them on 
to the achievement of high and noble and splen- 
did things? 

I believe in an educated ministry. I believe 

in culture in the pew and in the pulpit, but I 

156 



The Minister in the Market Place 

have no patience with that sort of culture that 
wraps the silken robe of its selfishness about it 
and forgets its mission, its purpose, its signifi- 
cance, in the presence of a suffering humanity. 

Now, it is my purpose to-night to consider 
for a few moments the makeup of the market 
place and the relation of the gospel to the 
various types we discover in the market place. 

Where shall we go in order to find men? We 
hear very much nowadays about the absence of 
men from the churches. It is true. May not 
the fault lie, to a great extent, with the pulpit? 
If the preacher shall daily go to the market 
place he will find out for himself the needs 
and temptations and sorrows and struggles of 
men, and he will then be enabled to address a 
message to them which shall meet the require- 
ments of their nature. Furthermore, in this way 
the pulpit will discover the temper of the market 
place, the temper of masculine humanity in its 
relation to Christianity. 

Two things will be made evident. The de- 
mand to-day on the part of the men of 
the market place is for a Christianity that 
is simple, direct, straightforward, positive, 
and aggressive. Men do not care for theology; 
they do care for the facts with which theology 
has to do. They do not care for the method of the 
manufacture of violins; they do care for the 
music. They do not care for technicalities; 

157 



The Minister in the Market Place 

they do care for realities. I believe that, if the 
pulpit of to-day will bring to men the sim- 
ple, unadorned Christianity of Christ, the 
men will hear it. They do not wish to be 
troubled and confused and vexed by metaphy- 
sical subtleties and vain speculations in connec- 
tion with w^hich there is neither information nor 
enrichment. 

Another thing will be discovered. The 
temper of masculine humanity in the market 
place is demanding that the gospel shall make 
demands on them that shall be worth while. 
I believe that one reason why men stay away 
from the churches to-day is because the pulpit 
is bringing a soft and effeminate message to 
them rather than the virile, heroic message of 
the gospel. We invite them into a drawing 
room when they are waiting to hear the sound 
of a trumpet summoning them to the battle- 
field. We play for their amusement upon the flute 
when they are listening for the bugle. It has 
always been true in the history of the world that 
men will answer to the heroic. Jesus made that 
appeal. He didn't say unto men, ''Come and 
be entertained, come and let me play for you 
and sing for you, come and be charmed by the 
beautiful things that I may say to you." What 
was his message? ''If any man will come after 
me, let him deny himself and take up his cross 
and follow me." A gas-lighted and flower- 



The Minister In the Market Place 

scented Christianity does not meet the require- 
ments of masculine humanity, and the pulpit 
might as vs^ell understand now, if it desires to 
reach men, that it must once again lift up the 
cross and say unto men, ''Here is your op- 
portunity for heroic endeavor and for self-sacrific- 
ing service in the interest of humanity." 

But let me call attention to some of the 
types of the market place. I am thinking par- 
ticularly of those who are indifferent to the 
claims of religion, either through ignorance or 
through lack of opportunity rather than through 
a determination on their part not to hear the 
claims of the gospel. I shall eliminate any 
reference to the cultured, to the wealthy, to 
those who occupy high social positions, and 
would bid you think, in the first place, of that 
element of society known as the slums. Here 
we strike bottom at once. By the slums I mean 
the people who know nothing of books and 
paintings; nothing of the artificialities and 
conventionalities of refined society; those who, 
to a very large extent, are poverty-stricken and 
brutal and criminal, wanting in ideals, wanting 
in high enthusiasm, wanting in any outlook, 
either for time or eternity. Has the gospel of 
Jesus Christ any message for them? Has the 
pulpit any relation to that element of the popu- 
lation of the market place? If it has come to 
the point in history when the church of Jesus 

159 



The Minister in the Market Place 

Christ thinks itself justified in ignoring that 
class of humanity, I say to you in all frankness, 
we ought to close our church doors and shut 
our Bible and cease our hymn singing and give 
up the whole business as a fraud and a farce. It is 
a simple caricature of the religion of Jesus 
Christ to ignore that most desperately needy ele- 
ment of human society. Emerson said on one oc- 
casion a hard thing — that man who was so 
gentle that one wrote concerning him he could 
take down our idols as though he were perform- 
ing a religious act. He said this: *'The great- 
est trouble about charity is that the lives you 
are asked to preserve are not worth preserving." 
That may be the gospel of culture; it is not the 
Gospel of Jesus Christ. That may suit a scien- 
tific conception or belief in the survival of the 
fittest, through the crushing out of those that 
are weakest. It is not in harmony with that 
spirit of love which is as far-reaching as the 
sun, as comprehensive in its outreaching as the 
atmosphere. 

What right has a church calling itself a 
church of Jesus Christ to refuse one moment to 
grapple with the problem of the slums? If 
Jerry McAuley could be saved by the grace of 
God — the man whose residence was in nearly all 
of the penitentiaries of the world — if that man 
could be redeemed and made a servant fit and 
meet for the Master's use during many 

160 



The Minister in the Market Place 

years of life, followed by thousands in New 
York City to his last resting place, hav- 
ing his memory thereby honored and re- 
vered, then there is hope for the vilest and 
lowest in the slums of our city. I have read of 
a certain harp that was left in an old castle by a 
wandering minstrel, who passed on, and the 
residents of that castle could not use the harp. 
They had no skill in their touch and no power 
to awaken the wondrous melody that slept in it. 
It became cobwebbed and hung there disused. 
Years went by, the wandering minstrel re- 
turned; the master of the harp was once again 
in the presence of his loved instrument; he 
took it up tenderly, he touched its chords, and 
lo, marvelous music came issuing from it! Ah, 
my friends, it depends upon whose touch it is 
in determining the question as to whether or 
not the slums can be redeemed! 

He who goes into the slums with an air of 
patronage, he who engages in the effort to save 
society as a fad, he who simply uses such enter- 
prises as a pastime or a diversion, shall find 
only revolt and rebellion on the part of those 
w^hom he seeks to please; but when the Christ 
or his representative goes into the slums we 
shall find marvelous music waiting to be called 
forth by the divine touch. 

I want to say, furthermore, that unless the 
slums are redeemed, then the city itself is in 
(11) 161 



The Minister in the Market Place 

danger. The great fault with the culture of the 
ancient world was that it did not go down deep 
enough, and therefore the social state became 
top-heavy, in that culture was bestowed upon the 
few, and the result was confusion and over- 
throw. If our religion should be limited only 
to the intelligent, to the refined, to the cul- 
tured, we should have the same condition of af- 
fairs. We must, my friends, comedown among 
the masses if we would save society from the 
dangers which threaten it. Revolution is 
in the slums; anarchy is in the slums; 
the socialism that is dangerous is largely dif- 
fused in the slums. The people of the slums 
are crouching and growling and snarling in the 
presence of the inequalities of society, as they 
groan under the heavy burden of poverty and 
wretchedness and ignorance which crushes them 
down to the earth. Woe be unto the pulpit if 
it forgets the men in the slums! 

And there is another figure in this hurrying 
throng of the market place — sturdy, strong, 
silent. > self-reliant, courageous — v/e call him 
the working man. We hear much about him 
in his relation to the capitalist. I deny his 
right to that title as an exclusive possession. 
All of us are working men who are engaged 
in any sort of useful enterprise to make this 
world the better because of our presence in it. 

There are working men in the realm of thought, 

16^ 



The Minister in the Market Place 

no less than in the realm of material things. But 
the significant fact is this: that the working 
man — the mechanic, the artisan, the toiler in 
the factories— is almost wholly indifferent to 
the claims of the church. In a circular letter 
sent out to the labor leaders of this country by 
one vv^ho was studying the labor problem, it 
was discovered that these labor leaders, repre- 
senting the labor constituency of the country, 
had not one word of praise to say concerning 
the church, while all of them were agreed in 
giving honor and respect and admiration to 
Jesus Christ. They said (these working men): 
^^Your churches are rich men's clubs; your 
churches represent organized hypocrisy; and, 
for our part, we will take in the summer time 
an outing for our families, and at other times 
the union or the lodge. '^ What is the trouble? 
Here is a class of our population back of all 
our material development. The brain of Christo- 
pher Wren could not alone build Westminster 
Abbey. The hand of the toiler must rear 
those walls. The whir of wheels, the clatter 
of the printing press, the click of the telegraph, 
the thunder and roar of traffic, all this is the 
oratorio of the laboring man. He is the most 
potent factor in our Christian civilizatiou. 
Without him our factories close; without him 
we cannot build churches in which to worship; 
without him even the organ cannot be reared 

163 



The iMinister in the Market Place 

from which the uplifting and inspiring strains 
to heaven shall pour forth; without him the 
author is powerless to get his thoughts to the 
world, and yet this class, according to the paper 
referred to, is indifferent to the claims of the 
church. 

I am here to say that the church must be 
judged in the light of its ideals, rather than its 
actual achievements. The church is anxious 
to realize those ideals, but it is composed of 
weak and fallible and sinful and erring men. 
The church, furthermore, must be judged iu 
the light of its limitations. The laboring man 
is to remember that the church cannot com- 
mand all the resources of society or all the 
wealth of the v/orld to do what it may please. 
If the President, who is a Republican, should 
happen to have a Democratic House and a Dem- 
ocratic Senate, he is thereby hampered in the 
carrying out of the very best plans which he 
may wish to bring into fulfilment for the bene- 
fit of the people; and the church to-day is try- 
ing to multiply its resources, to get hold of the 
beneficent departments of humanity in order 
that they may all be turned to the carrying on 
of this world to higher and nobler things; but 
in the meantime we are limited and cannot do 
it. I believe the attitude of the working man 
toward the church is unjust, and yet at the 
same time I am here to say that the church 

164 



The Minister in the Market Place 

of Christ to-day has departed from the spirit 
of the Son of Man, the Prince of working 
men of all ages and centuries. I do not 
know how to solve the problem. I know 
this to be true: The pulpit must try in its 
dealings with the working man to steer be- 
tween socialism on the one hand and social ex- 
clusiveness on the other hand. The church 
cannot espouse any philosophy, be it socialism 
or any other. It cannot champion any sec- 
tional cause. It must condemn the class spirit 
with all its might and energy in the name 
of Him who created all men of one blood who 
dwell upon the face of the earth. Perhaps 
if there were less of the class spirit in the 
churches to-day there would be greater readi- 
ness on the part of the working men to crowd 
its doors and to find there the message of life 
and hope and salvation. 

I might speak, in conclusion, of another 
figure in the market place, and then I 
promise to let you go. I am thinking of the 
politician. You recognize him as a common 
character in the market place. He is genial, he 
has a smile for everybody; he is a free hearted 
individual. He mixes and mingles easily with 
the crowd; and yet, do you know that the 
av^erage politician is utterly aloof from the 
church, wholly indifferent to the claims of 
Christianity in so far as the church may repre- 

165 



The Minister in the Market Place 

sent Christianity? Why is it? I do not know. 
It is a puzzle, just as many other things in this 
world are puzzles. I want to say this, how- 
ever, that the gospel of Jesus Christ has no 
compromise with the politician any more than 
it has any compromise with the working man 
or with the man in the slums. One thing that 
gospel emphasizes as the basis of the salvation of 
the politician, and that is simple, old-fashioned, 
plain, unadulterated honesty; and I believe 
that there is not a politician in this country of 
ours to-day who, if he simply gives himself to 
the business of being honest, won't find it an 
easy thing to take a step further and to enter 
into the higher things which pertain to the re- 
ligion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You 
cannot build a superstructure upon a rotten 
foundation. You may bring magnificent stones 
and have them polished; you may bring tim- 
bers of oak gathered from the forests of the 
earth; you may have the very best possible ma- 
terial and the very best carpenters and masons 
employed — but if you have a rotten foundation 
all of your good timber subsequently built upon 
it means nothing. Given a man who hates a lie; 
given a man who recognizes responsibility to 
his constituency; given a man who is honest up 
and down, out and out, through and through, 
and you have something on which to build. 
Otherwise you are trying to rear a structure on 

a rotten foundation. 

166 



The Minister in the Market Place 

Oh, my friends, I want us to have this lesson 
to carry home with us! I have thought of these 
three classes of society as representing, perhaps, 
those who are to-day most indifferent to 
the claims of religion, and who represent the 
temper of the Athenian market place; 
but I want to leave this message with you: 
The gospel of Jesus Christ knows no 
classes. It comes in the name of him who 
called himself the Son of Man, the representa- 
tive of the human race, in whose veins pulsed 
the blood of humanity. The gospel he brings 
is a gospel for rich and for poor, for high and for 
low, for the outcast and for the refined and cul- 
tured. 

May I say this before closing — that I am not 
at all sure that the man in the slums needs the 
gospel more than the man in the palace. I am not 
at all sure but that Fifth avenue is to-day more 
in need of the gospel of Jesus Christ than Five 
Points in New York City. There is tragedy in 
the brown-stone front no less than in the tene- 
ment house. The starved soul in the delicately 
nurtured, finely clothed body in hideous 
contrast with the physical ease and luxury 
that are chokinof it — that is tra^^edv! May 
God help us to bring the gospel to all 
men in harmony with the particular needs 
and requirements of those with whom we have 
to deal, and may we furthermore understand 

167 



The Minister in the Market Place 

that it is at our peril if we turn to a more in- 
viting environment from the slums or 
away from other elements of society that are 
equally in need of this gospel of Jesus Christ. 
Oh, if we could feel the sweep and majesty and 
universality of the gospel of the Son of God! 
There is but one condition that it takes into 
consideration, and that is the lost condition. If 
men are lost, wherever they may be and under 
whatsoever circumstances they may be placed, 
the strong arm of the Son of God is stretched 
out to rescue and to save and to redeem. This 
is the message of the gospel in its relation to the 
market place, and may God burn it into the 
souls of all Christian people! 



168 



XIV 
AN OUTLINE SERMON 

"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten 
Son, that whosoever believeth fn him should not perish, but have 
everlasting life." John 3:16. 

A recent sermon delivered in lyouisville, Ky., 
setting forth certain critical views of the gos- 
pel record, offers a favorable opportunity to 
submit by way of contrast the positive affirma- 
tions of Christianity. I do not deny the right 
of criticism in any realm where its methods 
can be legitimately employed. Historical 
criticism, applied to the Bible, is altogether 
legitimate, for the Bible, like any other book, 
unquestionably has a literary development and 
history. Reverent criticism has made the Bible 
more real to those who love it, as containing 
the supreme revelation of God in Christ. It 
has deepened rather than lessened our reverence 
for that book, concerning which Sir Walter 
Scott declares, *^There is only one Book.'' 
Criticism has excavated its treasures. But bib- 
lical criticism must be constructive, if it shall 
be helpful; it must be employed for the sake of 

169 



An Outline Sermon 

life or else it is no better tliau literary dilettante- 
ism. Nor are \ve to suppose that the con- 
clusions of even reverent criticism are infalli- 
ble. To place upon them the magic phrase 
**modern scholarship'' need not awe us, for the 
history of scholarship in the realm of biblical 
criticism has been largely progress through sur- 
render, advance through defeat. 

But while the scholars are bringing to us 
their latest conclusions as to the literary struc- 
ture of the Bible, there is need for the proclama- 
tion of the positive gospel of Jesus Christ. Criti- 
cism has no help for a soul in agony. It offers 
no deliverance to sin-burdened humanity. It is 
really the mental luxury of the few; it has no 
message for the great mass of struggling, suf- 
fering men and women; it is not a gospel, it is 
a literary method or discipline. 

In our text we have in broad outline the posi- 
tive gospel of Jesus Christ, filled in and com- 
pleted by the w^hole history of Christianity. 
Hear the mighty music of this utterance: 
*'For God so loved the world, that he gave his 
only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in 
him should not perish, but have everlasting 
life.'' This is a gospel — a tremendous affirma- 
tion of good news for all the world. What are 
its facts as given to us by the whole gospel 
record? First, there is a God; secondly, the 
relation of this God to man is one of love; 

170 



An Outline Sermon 

thirdly, this love has always existed in the di- 
vine nature, but received its supreme historic 
expression in Jesus Christ; fourthly, this Christ 
declared the divine love in his words and works 
— pre-eminently in his death and resurrection — 
and finally all men who believe in this Christ 
by appropriating his life and spirit have here 
and now eternal life which finds its fulfillment 
and completion in a life of blessedness beyond 
the grave. 

Concerning this positive gospel observe: 
First, these facts are not invalidated by the 
matter of authorship. The text is taken from 
the gospel of John, but the truth of the facts is 
altogether independent of who wrote the great 
words. Somebody wrote the book known as 
the ^'Gospel according to St. John," and who- 
ever wrote it has made it as clear as day that he 
was bearing witness to the truth. There is not 
a false or discordant note in the great melody. 
It may be added, however, in the words of Prof 
lyadd: ^'The vigorous and determined at- 
tacks upon the genuineness of the fourth gos- 
pel have greatly increased instead of impairing 
our confidence in the traditional view." 

Secondly, the fact of God's love does not 
come within the scope of literary criticism. The 
proposition — ^^God so loved the world' ' — may 
be considered with grammar and lexicon, but 
the fact can only be made known in terms of 

171 



An Outline Sermon 

life. This is a matter with which history has 
to do. It is not denied that Jesus Christ lived 
and was crucified on a cross. That granted — 
and giving to him only supreme place as man — 
you have in him an expression of God's 
love in the highest terms of life — for his is con- 
cededly the highest life. The simple question 
is whether such a suprem.e expression of love 
has been made in such a person as Jesus Christ. 
History must answer this question — and there 
is no uncertainty in the reply. 

Thirdly, we are further to remember that 
criticism cannot offset in any wise the blessings 
which follow upon the acceptance of Jesus 
Christ. They are matters of human conscious- 
ness. There are thousands who are actually en- 
joying these blessings as consciously as one en- 
joys a day in June. Criticism cannot change 
the facts of Christian experience. 

Fourthly, it is when we come to speak of the 
miraculous in the history of our Lord — his mirac- 
ulous birth, his wonderful words and his res- 
urrection from the dead — it is then we are chal- 
lenged with the declaration that the record is 
not trustworthy. Is it not strange, to say the 
least, that these critics, while admitting that 
records are sufficiently trustworthy to give us 
the sublime figure of the human Jesus, deny that 
the writers can be trusted in dealing with super- 
natural accessories? Given the personality of 

172 



An Outline Sermon 

Christ — and this is conceded, for our critics 
can find no words too lofty in describing his 
character — and the miracles, one might say, 
become the natural outflow and expression of 
such a life. They are natural to the character. 
Their value does not consist in making Jesus 
the Son of God, but in declaring the fact. His 
divinity is inherent in his character, and his 
miraculous works are not evidential because of 
their wonderful features, but because of their 
quality, revealing, as they all do, the divine love 
and compassion and character. They are but ' 
the external shining which comes from the in- 
ward glory. 

The gospel of Jesus Christ can never be 
touched by criticism — whatever its find- 
ings — for that gospel alone is the answer to the 
deepest needs and loftiest aspirations of the 
human soul. 



173 



XV 
"IS THERE A HELL?" 

*'And in hell he lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and 
seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom." LuKE 16; 23. 

Is there a hell? This is the tremendous 
question we are to consider. It may be answered 
by asking another question: Can there be in any 
world wickedness apart from wretchedness? The 
two things, sin and suffering, wickedness and 
wretchedness, go together as swan and shadow, 
as cause and effect. Hell is the necessary con- 
sequence of sin — the inexorable outworking of 
natural law in a perverted soul. Its fires are 
those v/hich have been kindled by lust and hate 
and selfishness and crime. Its outer darkness 
is that of a soul blinded to the beauty of holi- 
ness; its prison-house is that in which the souPs 
noblest aspirations have been stifled and stilled. 
An inspired apostle utters the law which governs 
a perverted soul, and therefore enunciates that 
which is true in the very nature of things, 

when he says: '^Tribulation and wrath upon 

174 



Is There a Hell? 

every son of man which worketh evil. ' ' If insani- 
ty has been described as sweet bells jangling 
and out of tune, hell may be described as the soul 
out of harmony with God, and, therefore, out 
of harmony with self and the nature of things. 
Where is hell? It cannot be found in any 
geography; it has no boundaries. You cannot 
affirm of it, lo, here, or lo, there. It is an in- 
visible realm. Hell must be located in the soul 
of the sinner. Hell is an outraged and dis- 
honored conscience. If you had asked Charles 
IX of France, when he lay dying, ''Where is 
hell?" he might have made answer, as he 
listened in imagination to the groans v/hich 
came from the victims of St. Bartholomew's 
massacre, ''Hell is within this bosom, in the 
thought of power abused, of cruelty enthroned, oj 
justice dishonored, of religion disgraced. If you 
will look beneath the surface, if you will go be- 
yond this miserable liesh, you shall discover the 
fires of hell blazing within mine own soul." 
Where there is sin unrepented of, there is hell. 
Milton recognizes this profound truth when he 
represents his Satan as saying: 

*'Which way I floe am hell, 
Myself am hell." 

Byron reminds us that to the guilty soul 
all places are hell: 

"To zones, though more and more remote, 
Still, still pursues, where'er I be, 
The blight of life, the demon thought." 
175 



Is There a Hell? 

Is hell endless? If there be such a thing as 
endless sin, then there must be endless punish^ 
ment. If there shall be at any given point in 
eternity the extinguishment of sin, wholly and 
entirely, then the flames of hell will go out, for 
there shall be no material to feed them. In the 
light of the facts of this present life, and observ- 
ing the tendency of character, whether good or 
evil, to become fixed and permanent and un- 
alterable, it would seem that there is no escape 
from those awful words which close the Book 
of Revelation: ^'He that is unjust will go on 
being unjust, he that is unholy will go on be- 
ing unholy, he that is filthy will go on being 
filthy." If in any world there shall be ability on 
the part of the sinner to turn from his sin, if 
that capacity shall not have been destroyed 
through wickedness, then I believe that the arm 
of infinite love will lift such a one even out of 
the pit; but the terrible facts of human experi- 
ence go to show that it is the tendency of a 
soul given to wickedness to become more 
hardened and more perverse until we are driven to 
the conclusion that there may come a time 
when the infinite love of an infinite God 
is only a vain appeal. 

You will observe from these opening remarks 
that I do not believe in a material hell. I do 
not believe in Dante's Inferno with its sullen 
moans and hollow groans and shrieks of tortured 

176 



Is There a Hell? 

ghosts. It is sublime poetry, but is miserable 
psychology. I do not believe in a literal fire 
as the element of punishment, for the very 
simple reason that the spirit is not combustible. 
You cannot scorch a soul with flame, you can- 
not beat it with few or many stripes, you can- 
not shut it up as a physical presence within a 
dungeon; it must suffer in harmony with its 
own nature, in harmony with its constitution, 
or it cannot suffer at all. 

The language of the New Testament dealing 
with this subject of hell, is necessarily figura- 
tive. It is either figurative or meaningless. 
It is meaningless, because, if literal, it would 
be contradictory. Take the figures that are em- 
ployed. They are mutually exclusive, if not 
to be received as figurative. Hell cannot be at 
the same time a furnace and outer darkness; 
it cannot be at the same time a bottomless pit 
and a lake of brimstone. No, friends, it would 
seem that inspiration was unable in literal lan- 
guage to describe the awful reality, and there- 
fore, symbolism was employed in order that 
vividness might be given to the reality. 

I want you to hear Jesus' doctrine of hell, 
and before I present it let me remind you that 
he who spake this parable of the rich man and 
Lazarus had in his bosom the tenderest heart 
that ever beat in human bosom. Of him 
it was said: '*A bruised reed will he not 
(12) 177 



Is There a Hell? 

break, and smoking flax will be not quench.'' 
He could not be indifferent to the cry of a beg- 
gar or the bleating of a lamb. He wept over 
Jerusalem. His great frame shook with sobs 
as he poured out liis sympathy in the home of 
Bethany. It is this tender Christ who brings 
before us the most awful picture that has ever 
been thrown before the mind or the imagina- 
tion of man. Do you suppose that for mere 
literary purposes he gave to the world this im- 
mortal parable? Do you suppose that he would 
seek to terrify the imagination unless there 
should be some awful fact which would re- 
quire to be told in order that the imagination 
might be horrified and man be saved? Hear 
the story: 

There was a certain rich man, who is name- 
less, and a certain beggar named lyazarus. The 
rich man clothed himself in purple and fine 
linen and fared sumptuously every day. The 
beggar was laid at his gate desiring to be fed 
with the crumbs which fell from the rich man's 
table. Both died, both were buried. Lazarus 
is carried by the angels into iVbraham's bosom. 
Of the rich man, it is said, in hell he lifted up 
his eyes, being in torment. Disillusionment 
had come; his soul was face to face with awful 
reality. Our text is the wail of a lost soul more 
mournful than the sighing of the wind through 
the pines. It is the soul's awakening in the 

178 



Is There a Hell? 

presence of its own infamy; it is self-loathing; 
it is self-disgust. 

Would you know something of the intensity 
of its punishment? Observe the figures that are 
employed. He is represented as being in flames. 
He is sending a message to Father Abraham, 
saying: ^^I^et Lazarus come with a drop of 
water to cool my parched tongue." These 
statements are not to be accepted literally. 

You have here the agony of a tormented 
conscience. 

Victor Hugo says somewhere that there is 
a spectacle grander than the ocean, it is the 
conscience; there is a spectacle grander than the 
sky, it is the interior of the soul ; it is the tendency 
of the soul to revert to an ideal, as it is the ten- 
dency of the sea to flow shoreward. That ten- 
dency in the sea is called the tide; that tendency 
in the culprit is called remorse. God heaves the 
soul as an ocean. 

What is remorse? It seems to me that an 
approximate definition would be this: It is the 
soul face to face with its own sin, stripped of all 
glamour and illusions, looking at that sin in its 
naked deformity, with all its awful and hideous 
features. We do not see sin in this life stripped 
of its adornments. When it is absohitely 
freed from all the glamour which this world 
throws around it, and we recognize it as our 
own, the product of our own soul, there is no 

179 



Is There a Hell? 

deeper damnation than to feel that one is 
capable of producing such a thing. 

Would you analyze this punishment? Then 
look more closely into the trouble and you 
will perceive, in the first place, that you have 
here the pain of memory. Memory is either a 
fiend or an angel, either a benediction or a 
cuise. To the rich man it was a curse. Abra- 
ham said to him: *'Son, remember." If when 
death shall come to the sinner he could only 
forget, if all the record could then and there be 
erased, then, believe me, very much of the bit- 
terness of hell would be destroyed. What did 
this rich man remember? So far as the record 
informs us, he was not a gambler, he was not a 
murderer, he was not a thief, he was not a 
drunkard. No doubt he was completely and 
wholly respectable. He was simply loveless. 
He lived for himself and thought for himself — 
for himself, and none beside. If he had done 
some kind deed, then to the extent of the in- 
fluence of that kind deed the pain of hell w^ould 
have been lessened. Do you remember that 
legend which represents an old saint travel- 
ing northward, and, discovering Judas Is- 
cariot on an iceberg, the saint said to 
Judas: ^^How does it happen that you 
have been given this brief respite from 
your misery?" And Judas made answer: *^A 
long time ago in a Joppa street I cast a cloak 

180 



Is There a Hell? 

around the miserable form of a robber, and an 
angel has come bidding me remember the deed, 
and saying that in view of that deed this mo- 
ment of freedom from pain should be granted." 

My friends, I do not believe that the bitter- 
ness of hell will consist so much in the mem- 
ory of some one luminous, clearly-marked crime 
as in the memory of a wasted life, the memory 
of sin that practice has burned into the blood. 
This is part of the pain of hell. Or again, we are 
taught that there is a pain of incapacity. Those 
from yonder side cannot pass to the hither side. 
Mark you, they cannot pass, not because God 
has withdrawn his mercy, but because the the 
soul has destroyed through sin its capacity to 
receive mercy. Can lago repent? CanMephis- 
topheles repent? Can Judas Iscariot repent? If 
they could and would repent, the smile of God 
would break out from heaven upon them in hell. 
Mark you, it is the tendency of character to be- 
come permanent, and when that fixed and per- 
manent moral state has been reached, there is no 
capacity for repentance, even though an angel 
should stand before the sinner and preach the 
everlasting gospel of the Son of God. 

That is the most awful thought in connec- 
tion with Jesus' doctrine of hell. Have you 
ever had the nightmare? Do 50U know what 
it is to feel the danger, the dread, the terror, 
and to be able only to moan and to groan, ut- 

181 



Is There a Hell? 

terly powerless to move hand or foot? There 
is such a thing as moral incapacity , when the soul 
cannot wuU that which is right, when the af- 
fections cannot be set on those things which are 
holy, when the perverted desires invariably take 
the way from God and from truth and from 
righteousness. Paul speaks of the Gentile 
world, a portion of it as having come to that 
moral condition when it could be said that they 
were past feeling, the power of sensibility de- 
stroyed. 

The third element which enters into this 
punishment is that of conscious desert. If one 
is suffering and knows himself to be suffering 
unjustly, that thought takes away something of 
the pain, but if one knows himself to be suffer- 
ing justly, that no single stroke of sorrow is laid 
upon him which he does not deserve, there is 
in this thought — the consciousness that the 
punishment is just, that which adds to 
the pain and the misery and the anguish 
of it. Abraham reminds the rich man of this 
fact: ''You in your lifetime," he says, ''had 
your good things and Lazarus evil things. Now 
thou art tormented and he is comforted." It is 
absolute, inexorable justice. 

I believe, friends, that if we are saved it will 
be absolute justice, plus mercy, because the 
soul has the capacity to receive mercy. I be- 
lieve that if we are lost it will be absolute justice 

182 



Is There a Hell? 

without mercy, because the soul has lost the 
capacity to receive mercy. 

In all that I have said there is no re- 
flection upon the moral character of God. God 
is love. Nor is there in the fact of future pun- 
ishment, as has been represented to you, 
anything inconsistent with that love. For, 
mark you, the hell which I have been 
describing is that of the sinner. It is he 
who kindles the fire; it is he who builds the 
walls of his dungeon; it is he who writes over 
the gateway of his prison home: '*He who 
enters here leaves hope behind." The man 
is responsible for his own doom. There is 
nothing arbitrary here, but only that which is 
necessary. If I should cast from my hand a 
stone, by virtue of its weight and the law of 
gravitation, it would sink to the earth. If I 
should allow to escape from my hand a bird, the 
law governing the bird and that law enabling 
it to contravene the law of gravitation, would 
make it rise into the blue. Each soul goes to 
its own place — the place that it fits — and none 
other. If a soul is weighted by sin, it goes 
down in harmony with the law of its perverted 
nature. If a soul is winged with righteousness, 
it soars upward into the presence of God in 
harmony with the law which governs a regen- 
erated and redeemed spirit. There is no cruelty 
here. It is the law of affinity carried out to its 

183 



Is There a Hell? 

completest and most perfect expression. The 
goats go to the goats, the sheep go to the 
sheep. 

Take a wicked man and place him in a 
heavenly environment, and he would be in hell. 
Take a good man and place him in an infernal 
environment, and in the nature of the case there 
could be no peace, no happiness. 

Is there a hell? Ask the man who has lived 
for himself, whose heart through neglect of 
love and sympathy has become a bloodless valve, 
whose soul through perversion of its powers 
has been robbed of its royal attributes, ask him 
if he doubts the reality of the doctrine of hell. 
Ask the man who has outraged honor through an- 
imalism or crime. As he finds himself no longer 
able to enjoy friendship, as he recognizes that 
his susceptibility to beauty has been destroyed, 
as he no longer finds pleasure in self-com- 
munion, ask him if he believes in the reality of 
hell. Ask the murderer, who hears articulate 
voices in a chamber in which there is no human 
presence, who discovers witnesses of his awful 
crime in stones and trees and running brooks, 
who cries with Lady Macbeth moaning in her 
sleep: *'Out, accursed spot; out, accursed spot!'' 
ask him if there be a hell. 

Let history unroll the long annals of her crimes, 
and as she introduces us to Herod or Nero or 
Caligula, let us ask the meaning of her record 

184 



Is There a Hell? 

and see if she can tell her history in other than 
in letters of fire. The literature of the tormented 
conscience furnishes us with all that is essential 
to the doctrine of hell — that literature from 
^schylus to Hawthorne, from Shakespeare to 
George EHot, proves to us it is hell begun. 
Macbeth plus eternity is equal to hell. The 
laws which govern a perverted soul here are 
not changed there. Sin plus eternity equals 
hell. 

Friends, it is an awful doctrine. I have 
spoken to you long enough ; I want to throw 
over against the dark picture the fair vision of 
the Son of Man, the Savior of sinners, concern- 
ing whom it may evermore be said : ^ ^ Nor is there 
aught more fair than is the smile upon his face. ' ' 
I remember that he came all the way from 
heaven to earth to rescue his brothers from this 
awful doom of which I have been speaking, for 
there is no escape from hell save through 
escape from sin. Jesus stands before the door 
of every human soul asking for admission, but 
he will not force an entrance. If men could be 
saved by force, then God would save them by 
force, but since men are spirits they can be 
saved only as they shall give their free and full 
and voluntary consent. God's love is impotent 
in the presence of an obstinate will. The ap- 
peal of the old prophet is the appeal which 
comes ringing down through the ages and the 

18S 



Is There a Hell? 

centuries: ^^Turnye, turn ye, for why will you 
die, O House of Israel?'' And another, in 
language more tender than music, more pathetic 
than any wail of sorrow which ever broke upon 
mortal ear, gives forth these words, *^0 Jerusa- 
lem, Jerusalem, how often I would have gath- 
ered you together as a hen gathers her 
brood under her wings, but ye would not." 
May I say it reverently, God is limited in the 
exercise of his grace. May I say it reverently, 
long as are the arms of the cross, there are 
souls it can never reach in time or eternity. 
May God save any man to whom I speak to- 
night from such a doom as this. 



186 



XVI 
"THE ALL CONQUERING NAME." 

"Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a 
name which is above every name." Philippians 2:9, 

The name of Jesus is pre-eminent. It is 
solitary in its grandeur and significance. It is 
not found on any list of immortals. It occupies 
a place of its own. It is not a star in earth's 
galaxy of greatness. It is the central luminary. 
It has conquered its primacy. It has won its 
exalted position through inherent worth and 
actual achievement. Every honor accorded to 
it is the result of actual conquest. The attempt to 
minimize this name or to place it on an equality 
with the great names of earth is waste of time 
and energy. As well endeavor to level the 
mountains with a breath or to bring within the 
compass of your own seeing heaven's infinite 
dome. True it is that we think of Jesus in the 
company of earth's great ones. But if we must 
accord him an appellation that shall be worthy 
of his dignity we can only exclaim in the words 
of Simon Peter, who spoke for the whole apos- 

187 



The All Conquering Name 

tolic school: ^^Thou art the Christ, the S xi of 
the living God." 

Shall we look for another? Shall Jesna ever 
be superseded? Is the man of Nazareth a 
finality? Shall there come one in some future 
age who shall surpass and transcend him? If 
you can conceive of that which is higher than 
the highest, if you can think of a glory greater 
than the concentrated splendor of the sun and 
stars, then we may be prepared to think of 
some greater figure who shall fill the world's 
thought and life. Until then we can but sing, 
with passionate conviction and intense earnest- 
ness: 

'^Whatever idol I have known, whate'er that idol be, 
Help me to tear it from its throne and worship only thee.'* 

I shall bring to you at this time a. recital of 
facts. I shall not invade the realm of theology 
and philosophy. I challenge any man to deny 
the facts concerning Jesus of Nazareth to which 
his attention shall be directed. If these facts 
are true then the Son of Mary has a claim upon 
your life and allegiance that is imperative and 
peremptory. I am here to exalt the Christ in 
harmony with the affirmation made by the in- 
spired writer that his name is above every 
name. 

The name of Jesus, in the first place, is pre- 
eminent in the realm of moral character. Other 

188 



The All Conquering Name 

names are associated vv^ith saintliness. His 
name alone is synonymous with moral perfec- 
tion. How shall we explain this? I am aware 
of the fact that it is the tendency of the human 
mind to idealize its heroes, and that the great 
men who belong to the historic and heroic past 
have been transfigured by the imagination until 
they have been clothed on with excellences 
which they never actually possessed. But in 
this process of idealization centuries have been 
necessary to bring about the result. No such 
crown as that which Washington wears to-day 
would be his had not these years passed away 
during which time the thoughts of men have 
gradually and slowly and most unconsciously 
glorified the first president of our republic. A 
remarkable fact in connection with Jesus of 
Nazareth is to be found in the truth that his 
contemporaries exalted him in language which 
has never been transcended by future ages and 
generations. It is a remarkable fact demand- 
ing explanation that the man of Galilee should 
have been placed by his contemporaries upon a 
pedestal so high that the thoughts of men in 
this twentieth century have not been able to 
lift him higher. Even those who refuse to Jesus 
of Nazareth their allegiance say concerning him 
that he is the highest among all holy men, and 
that between him and whomsoever else in the 
world there is no possible term of comparison. 

189 



The All Conquering Name 

In speaking of him there fall from their pens 
ruby commas, pearl full stops and emerald semi- 
colons; there can be no figures too splendid to 
employ in their exaltation of this magnificent 
character. 

If it be true that Jesus Christ in his moral 
character is immune from criticism, it follows, 
apart altogether from his miracles, that he 
is what he claimed to be, the Son of God, for 
what is divinity but perfect holiness? If God 
were the devil clothed on with all the attributes 
of omnipotence and omniscience he would 
be only an omnipotent devil, or an om- 
niscient devil. Power does not make him 
God; omniscience does not make him God. He 
is God because of his moral attributes, his per- 
fect holiness. Granted that Jesus Christ is 
without fault or blemish, granted that the testi- 
mony even of those who refuse allegiance to 
him, be true, it follows that he is divine, for 
moral perfection equals deity. There can be 
nothing higher than moral perfection. The 
name of Jesus Christ is synonymous with moral 
perfection. What can we do, my friends, in 
the presence of this white Christ, except to bow 
before him and cry out even as Thomas: *'My 
Lord and my God!" 

Again, the name of Jesus is above every other 
name in the realm of sacrifice. I do not deny 
that others have suffered and toiled for the 

190 



The All Conquering Name 

world's advancement. I remember that all 
progress has been by the way of Gethsemanes 
and Calvarys. I know that the way of human 
life, in so far as human life has been moving 
upward to God, has been a thorn path. Un- 
known heroes have perished for the sake of 
making the day just a little brighter, and the 
world to come, the future world of time, just a 
little more splendid. Others have died upon 
the cross besides Jesus Christ. The Appian 
Way was lined with crosses. Wherein is he 
supreme in the realm of sacrifice? His sacri- 
fice is unique because he himself is unique. 
Granted this same perfection and there must be 
a vividness in the suffering that cannot be ex- 
perienced by the imperfect. The man who is in 
possession of strong physical powers, in perfect 
health, suffers more than he who is diseased. 
Think of a perfect soul, white from the touch 
of an infinite God, placed in the midst of an 
imperfect environment, misunderstood, misrep- 
resented and maligned — think of such a soul, 
and you shall understand that there must luwc 
been a keenness in his agony beyond the reach 
of our imagination to understand. The highest 
cross that has ever been lifted up in this world 
is the cross on that green hill outside the 
city's wall. From that spirit has proceeded the 
spirit of self-sacrifice which has so dominated the 
world as that we interpret all splendid, heroic 

191 



The All Conquering Name 

aohievements in terms of the blood of him who 
died upon the cross. 

"In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea, 
With a jjlory in his bosom that transfigured you and me; 
As he died to make men holy, let us die to make men free. 
For God is marching on." 

Who can tell the thousands of lives that have 
been made patient because they have gazed upon 
him of the thorn crown? Who can tell of 
the thousands of brave deeds that have been 
done under the inspiration of him who was 
lifted up in order that he might draw all men 
unto himself? Back of the most brilliant 
achievements, achievements that have bet- 
tered the world, has been the spirit of 
the crucified Christ. No face has ever 
been so marred as his, and yet that 
marred face is more beautiful than can ever be 
described by the painter's imagination, how- 
ever earnest his effort to throw it upon the canvas 
in order that men may see in that one picture 
all sights in one, all glory in one supreme and 
splendid expression. Jesus is pre-eminent in the 
realm of sacrifice. 

Once more, the name of Jesus has been placed 
above every other name in the realm of intel- 
lect. He never painted a picture. He never 
enunciated a scientific dictum. He never gave 
to the world a single mechanical invention. He 
never wrote a book. He wasn't what you call 
in this age and generation a scholar. His su- 

192 



The All Conquering Name 

premacy is not pleaded for in the realm of 
science, in the realm of invention, in the realm 
of physical achievements, but his intellectual 
supremacy is discerned in the fact that he 
alone of all the world's religious leaders dis- 
covered the human soul, interpreted that soul 
unto men, explained its longings and its aspira- 
tions, recognized its needs and its possi- 
bilities and lifted it up to its proper emi- 
nence, so that for one to think of himself as a 
man made in the image of God is to think of 
man as little lower than God here and having 
within him possibilities that shall presently 
bring him unto the perfect image of the Son of 
God. 

Marvelous, indeed, is the reign of Christ in 
the realm of the soul. His Vv^ords are endorsed 
by universal consciousness. When he speaks, 
men say, with the scribe of old: ^'Well, Master, 
thou hast said the truth." When his word 
comes to us in the form of some gracious invi- 
tation we suddenly discover music in ourselves 
that we never dreamed of. When that word 
comes to us in the form of condemnation we 
come to hate ourselves because of the sin that 
has been revealed. When that word comes in 
the form of some lofty ideal bidding us leap for- 
ward to claim it, it seems that our strength is as 
the strength of ten. 

Mark in proof of his intellectual supremacy 
(13) 193 



The All Conquering Name 

the note of certainty in all of his utterances. 
Jesus is never tentative; he is never timid. His 
touch is always bold. When he speaks of God 
it is as one who has come from God. When he 
speaks of the spiritual world it is as one who 
has lived and breathed the atmosphere of that 
spiritual world. He speaks not as the scribes, 
but in a tone of absolute assurance. He never 
doubts. How shall we explain this? And, 
furthermore, his words command us. We can 
no more get away from the words of Jesus 
Christ than we can get away from our own 
souls. When you have once gazed upon a 
magnificent painting, if there is in you artistic 
appreciation you shall never get from under 
the spell of it; it holds you, it domi- 
nates you, it commands you, and all else is 
as moonlight unto sunlight, or as water unto 
wine. Get before you a grand, glorious, splen- 
did conception, a thought that fills every nook 
and corner of your being, and evermore you 
are a slave to that conception. It holds you; 
you are mastered. Jesus Christ has come into 
this world and he has laid his mind upon the 
centuries through which his spirit has passed, 
and that mind is laid upon the twentieth 
century no less surely and certainly than 
upon the first century. We think in 
terms of Christian thought. When we 
speak of home his spirit is there or it is no 

194 



The All Conquering Name 

home. When we speak of marriage, Jesus is 
once again at the wedding feast, even though 
he be not there as a physical presence to con- 
vert the water into wine. When we speak of 
childhood we hear the music from the long ago 
breathing upon us in dulcet tones sweeter than 
any note of flute and sublimer than the grandest 
peal of organ: ^^ Suffer little children to come 
unto me, and forbid them not for of such is the 
kingdom of heaven." 

We are under the spell of Jesus Christ, how- 
ever materialistic our age. I do not say that all 
of our civilization is permeated with an appre- 
ciation of his character, but I do mean to say 
that you cannot date a letter without recogniz- 
ing his birth; you cannot write 1905 without 
admitting that something extraordinary hap- 
pened about 2,000 years ago. You cannot get 
away from Jesus Christ. Here is intellectual 
supremacy that must be explained. 

And he is supreme in the realm of leadership. 
Splendid have been the leaders of the world in 
their respective fields of activity. Shakespeare 
is pre-eminent in the realm of dramatic genius. 
Darwin, perhaps, is pre-eminent in the realm 
of science. Plato unquestionably is pre-emi- 
nent in the realm of philosophy. Alexander or 
Napoleon is pre-eminent in the realm of mili- 
tary science, but Jesus Christ, while claiming 

for himself leadership in the moral realm alone 

195 



The All Conquering Name 

because of the intimate relation between moral 
and all other life, leads mankind in every de- 
partment of thought and endeavor. 

He to-day is the dominant spirit in litera- 
ture. Very recently a most admirable address 
was delivered by Dr. Henry Van Dyke in which 
he uses this language: ^^I read in Shakespeare 
the majesty of the moral law, in Victor Hugo 
the sacredness of childhood, in Goethe the glory 
of renunciation, in Wordsworth the joy of hu- 
mility, in Tennyson the triumph of immortal 
love, in Browning the courage of faitb in 
God, in Thackeray the ugliness of hypocrisy 
and the beauty of forgiveness, in George Eliot 
the supremacy of duty, in Dickens the divinity 
of kindness, and in Ruskin the dignity of serv- 
ice. Irving teaches me the lesson of simple- 
hearted cheerfulness, Hawthorne shows me the 
hatefulness of sin and the power of penitence, 
Longfellow gives me the soft music of tranquil 
hope and earnest endeavor, Lowell makes me 
feel that we must give ourselves to our fellow 
men if we would bless them, and Whittier sings 
to me of human brotherhood and divine Father- 
hood. Are not these Christian lessons?" 

Who inspired them? Whose spirit do they 
express? Of whose character are they the ulti- 
mate analysis? Jesus Christ is back of all tender- 
ness and all courage and all purity and all self- 
sacril&ce and all that has glorified and trans- 

196 



The All Conquering Name 

figured our civilization, of which literature is but 
the outward and visible expression. 

Among the world's reformers are we not to 
recognize the leadership of Jesus Christ? Who 
put into the heartof Luther to nail those theses 
on the church door of Wittenberg? Who 
stirred and fired the soul of Savonarola until he 
smote vice with whips of cord and startled 
Lorenzo in his magnificence, and led that great 
and mighty man in his dying hour to send for 
the humble preacher of righteousness? To the 
extent that Oliver Cromwell brought about the 
spirit of liberty in the world, we say that back 
of his armies was the Captain of our salvation, 
stirring the hearts of men with his mighty truth 
of liberty and leading them onward and forward 
to a higher and nobler and better and grander 
day. We have pictures of great thinkers, 
of statesmen, of soldiers surrounded by their 
coterie of admirers, those whom the hand of the 
mighty man has touched. Irving is represented 
as seated among his friends with his genial 
countenance beaming upon the happy company. 
Henry Clay is seen surrounded by the friends of 
his political circle. I was thinking this after- 
noon of the sort of circle there would be gath- 
ered about the Man of Galilee if some artist 
could be found who might have gazed actually 
upon the face of Jesus of Nazareth, and should 
have transmitted that face for some future 

197 



The All Conquering Name 

painter to retouch and enlarge and glorify. Let 
us imagine him placed here in the center of the 
circle of the worid's leaders, and Jesus Christ 
himself would be so large in the mighty power 
of his influence that he could not be crowded 
on any canvas by the mightiest utterance of 
genius, and certainly the circles of those whose 
lives he has influenced would be left entirely 
outside of the circumference of such a canvas. 

Friends, I want you to feel that Jesus 
Christ is not dead and buried. I want 
you to understand that he sleeps in no 
sepulchre; that long ago he came forth from 
the tomb prepared for him through the friend- 
ship of Joseph of Arimathea; that he is moWng 
across the ao:es and centuries: that to-dav he 
is the dominant spirit in literature, in science, 
in all the world of endeavor and achievement, 
and that we can take up the strain and say over 
and over that our Christ is leading on. 

But now, in conclusion, let me ask what it will 
mean for mankind when Jesus Christ shall come 
into his own, when he shall claim his rights? 
It is his right to reign, and he shall reign un- 
til ever}' enemy has been put beneath his feet. 
When that reign shall have become a realized 
fact we may be sure that whatever is denomi- 
nated secular shall become sacred. We say of 
certain pursuits that they are secular, and of cer- 
tain other pursuits that they are sacred. What 

198 



The All Conquering Name 

are secular pursuits but those that are divorced 
from the dominance of the Spirit of God? 
Every business that is animated by the spirit 
of truth and righteousness is a sacred business. 
No man is helping to make this world a little bet- 
ter, in whatever line of effort he may be giving 
his energies, who is not engaged in as sacred an 
endeavor as the preacher of the gospel of Jesus 
Christ, and when the Christ-spirit shall come 
to be the dominant spirit in business, in polit- 
ical life, in all of our endeavor, there shall be 
no secular, for the Christ shall preside over all. 
And then the dreams of poets and of seers shall 
come true. Then the prayer that the ages have 
been praying shall come true: '^Thy kingdom 
come.'' It is as a moan from the first century; 
it goes up as a cry all along through the 
generations. Every man who has been trying 
to make the world better has been breathing 
silently or audibly the prayer, ^'Thy kingdom 
come.'' Oh, God, hasten the day when the 
kingdoms of this world shall become the king- 
dom of our lyord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. 
Sometimes it seems that the prayer will break 
out into a jubilant strain of victory and then it 
dies away in a pathetic moan, but so sure as 
Jesus Christ lives and reigns, so sure tlie day 
shall come when that prayer shall be answered, 
and all kings shall bow before his crown, and 
all nations shall recognize him as Lord. 

199 



The All Conquering Name 

I believe in the ultimate and final su- 
premacy of righteousness. I believe that 
this name which is above every name 
shall come into its own rights bye and bye; that 
every tongue shall confess, that every knee shall 
bow before him, that all the world shall, will- 
ingly or unwillingly, acknowledge him as Lord 
and Christ. Jesus Christ is no figure of speech. 
He is no character of fiction. He is here in the' 
world now to demand his rights. You cannot 
get away from him. He owns you. He has 
paid for you. He has justified every claim 
which he makes upon you. Give him youi 
love, willingly and joyously, and help us to sing 
that song over and over: 

"All hail the power of Jesus' name, 

Let angels prostrate fall, 
Bring forth the royal diadem, 

And crown him Lord of all." 



200 



XVII 
THE CASTAWAY 

"And Cain went out from the presence of the Lord." Gen. 4:16. 

It is difficult for us to realize in thought a 
period of time when the first stars shone and 
the first flowers bloomed. Our text carries us 
back to that remote past when man had but just 
arrived and Eden was an experience as recent as 
yesterday. The dew had but just fallen and 
the world was fresh from the plastic touch of 
the Creator's hands. It is against this back- 
ground of a lost but still fresh Paradise, the new 
sky overarching a new earth, that the dark figure 
of Cain stands — the first murderer. Pathetic is 
the contrast between the freshness of the world 
and the doomed castaway. We are listening to 
heaven's first sentence upon the first criminal in 
the awful words: ''A fugitive and a vagabond 
shalt thou be in the earth." We are listening 
to a deliverance sadder than the moan of the 
sea, in the simple statement of our text: ^'Aud 
Cain went out from the presence of the Lord." 

201 



The Castaway 

The glory has departed, the dew has dried on the 
grass, the stars have faded; it is night, and we 
hear the moan of a soul in anguish. 

What are our impressions as we get this view 
of the first crime? How does murder look in 
the fresh light of the early morning of time? 
Does sin seem less repulsive or excusable before 
it has become familiar and commonplace? Does 
it entail less or different suffering? Is evil 
monstrous in itself, or does it seem to us an in- 
nocent pastime prior to the birth of civilization? 

It shall be our purpose in this sermon to show 
that the story of Cain is the story of every crim- 
inal; that crime to-day has the same fallen coun- 
tenance and wrathful mien as the crime of him 
who slew his brother; that the passing centuries 
and civilizations have not made sin less heinous 
or changed its inevitable consequences; that 
the spiritual penalty affixed to sin is no arbi- 
trary appointment inflicted in the beginning 
and since withdrawn, but that it is the penalty 
involved in the very nature and constitution of 
the soul. 

Statutory laws with their penalties come and 
go, but the laws governing the human soul 
are as unchanging and unchangeable as the soul 
itself. Let us consider, then, the sin of Cain. 

The specific crime was murder, but the spe- 
cific deed was only the lightning flash from a 
moral atmosphere surcharged with willfulness 

202 



The Castaway 

and sullen discontent. A wicked heart is back 
of that blow which stained the fresh earth with 
a brother's blood. It was no sin of sudden pas- 
sion. It was the culmination of a life estranged 
from love. In the story of the sacrifice offered 
by the two brothers it is made evident that the 
character of Cain is the explanation of the 
crime of Cain. Back of all great sins is the un- 
trained, undisciplined and neglected soul. 
Murder may be done in a moment, but 
long years of bad living have been lay- 
ing the mine preparatory to the ex- 
plosion. No man becomes a criminal in an 
hour. The hot brief hour only serves to give 
ripened expression to the long practice of evil. 
It is— 

The little rift within the lute 

That by and by will make the music mute, 

And, ever widening, slowly silence all. 

The gradual evolution of sin in a human soul, 
slowly unfolding its evil life in manifold forms 
until it reaches its flower in some great crime, 
is a spectacle fit to make the angels weep; yet it 
is a commonplace occurrence; it is a familiar 
tragedy. It awakens sufficient interest, if the 
crime be glaring, to justify the extra issue of a 
newspaper, but on the morrow it is forgotten. 
What has happened? A great crime has been 
perpetrated, but that crime reveals the wreck 
of a whole nature. It is a lost soul upon which 

203 



The Castaway 

we are gazing; and what language, my friends, 
is adequate to describe all the tragedy that is 
involved in the phrase, a lost soul — lost, it may- 
be, for time and eternity? 

As illustrating the unchanging character of 
the penalty attached to sin, let us consider the 
consequences of the crime of Cain. It is an 
old story, and whether told by Shakespeare or 
the Bible, has the same features so far as life 
is concerned. The story of Macbeth does not 
differ in the slightest particular from the story 
of Cain. I need not say to you that there is 
no gladness in crime. 

"All music dies, as in a grove, all song 
Beneath the shadow of some bird of prey." 

Tragedy has no fellowship with the cap and 
bells; the only laughter which the guilty soul 
hears is its scornful laugh at itself. 

"A murmur of misery comes from the ground, 
And the dirge of the soul is in every sound." 

Cain stands before us pitiable in his abject 
wretchedness. We hear him moaning, ^^My 
punishment is greater than I can bear." In 
what does this punishment consist? There was 
no criminal code; no decalogue had been 
thundered from Sinai; there was no law against 
murder; there was no external penalty that 
could possibly be inflicted upon him based upon 
statutory enactment. In what does his punish- 
ment consist? It is to be discovered in his own 

204 



The Castaway 

soul; it is self-loathing; it is the conscious stain 
of crime; it is the anguish of an immortal 
spirit. He could say in very truth: ** Which 
way I flee am hell, myself am hell." He hears 
a voice. Does it come from the blue sky? Does 
it proceed from any human person? What was 
that voice but the inner voice which sounds in 
the soul of every sinner? What message does 
it bring to him other than that which it brings 
to every man who has outraged his nature? It 
was the voice of God. It was the voice of con- 
science, and, very properly, Cain identifies the 
voice of his own conscience with the voice of 
God. 

It is not within the province of tnis sermon 
to enter the realm of moral philosophy and to 
discuss the nature and functions of conscience. 
Suffice it to say that conscience is the soul's 
recognition of its high origin. Its quick re- 
sentment of evil is proof that sin is no part of 
an original endowment; its pain and its protest 
alike are declarations of the fact that we are 
made in the image of the eternal God. 

*^For good ye are and bad and like to coins, 
some true, some bad, but all of ye stamped with 
the image of the King." 

It is the divine in man protesting against the 
outrage of divinity. It feels sin as an insult to 
royalty, as a degradation of that which was 
once fair and o^'dKtlinlo 

205 



The Castaway 

Be it remembered, my friends, that conscience 
is an original endowment of the soul. It is not 
the product of civilization; it is not the result 
of a long course of moral training. Cain rep- 
resents the primitive man before the arts and 
sciences had been born, before civilization had 
dawned, before any than the simplest moral con- 
ceptions had been presented. The primitive 
man represented by Cain has a conscience that 
causes him to writhe in his agony and to moan 
in his misery. Whenever that voice is stilled 
in a human soul there is a state close approach- 
ing to total depravity; it is spiritual death, it is 
deep damnation. 

What does this voice of conscience say to Cain 
and to every sinner? It says: "You shall not 
forget." Cain hears the voice of inquir>^: 
''Where is thy brother?" In vain does he pro- 
test his ignorance; in vain does he make an- 
swer: ^^Am I my brother's keeper?" His crime 
has become incorporate wath nature, the blood 
of his brother cries out from the ground. He 
can no more get away from his crime than he 
can get away from himself. Our sins have a 
habit of asking us disagreeable questions. They 
will not allow us to forget. They ask: ''Where 
is thy slain honor, where are the ideals and en- 
thusiasms that were once a source of inspiration 
and power? Where is the tender grace of a day 
that is dead? What has become of opportuni- 

206 



The Castaway 

ties that once stood as the fair angels of God in 
your pathway beckoning you to higher and 
nobler aims? Where is Abel, thy brother, slain 
duty, slain honor, slain purity, slain ideals?'^ 
Thy curse shall be to think. 

To zones tho' more and more remote, 
Still, still pursues, where'er you be, 
The blight of life, the demon thought. 

This voice of conscience, furthermore, says to 
every sinner, as it said to Cain, the ground is 
cursed. Nothing can be as it was before. It 
is a new world upon which the criminal looks, 
with all its glory departed, and every star that 
looks down upon him from high heaven is an 
eye of fire looking through and through him 
thoroughly to undo him. A writer of fiction 
has this to say: ''Blaspheme God, if you will; 
despise God, if you choose; do all the evil in 
the world that you desire to do, and yet the 
moonlight as it comes from the skies will shine 
no less brightly upon you than upon me and 
will conduct both of us to our quiet homes." 

Not so have we read the recorded experience 
of a criminal. On the contrary, nature be- 
comes antagonistic and the world rises up in 
arms, and that which once was beautiful is now 
monstrous. There is for him no landscape 
touched with the glory of God, but it is all 
transformed by the flaming fire of hell. Victor 
Hugo more admirably and truthfully describes 

207 



The Castaway 

the soul condition of the criminal in that won- 
derful dream of Jean Valjean. There is a 
spot which the great author describes as a 
place where children gathered lilacs in the 
springtime; the man dreams he is contemplat- 
ing crime and in anticipation of his crime; 
what is the result? The houses that are near 
by are ashen; the landscape is treeless and 
ashen; the skies are leaden; the flowers are 
all withered. Ah, my friends, if you want to 
change this earth, beautiful under the touch 
of God's sunlight, into a very blazing hell, you 
have only to stain your hands with blood or 
your soul with crime. '^Then come the mist 
and the weeping rain, and life is never the 
same'again." 

Or, again, conscience says: **You are 
banished, a fugitive, and a vagabond shalt 
thou be in the earth." Does this mean no more 
than physical punishment? When we are told 
that Cain went out from the presence of the 
Lord are we to understand no deeper spiritual 
meaning than that he walked away into some 
far distant and remote country? What is this 
banishment but the soul's conscious separation 
from God, and from holiness, and from all things 
true and noble and beautiful? The sentence of 
banishment is written upon his own soul, and 
an external voice could only confirm it. There 
are men in every community to whorn all doors 

20§ 



The Castaway 

are open, to whom all hands are outstretched, 
upon whom rests the smile of favor and pros- 
perity, and yet they know themselves to be 
moral outcasts, and they do not need to await 
any sentence from the final judgment bar to rec- 
ognize the fact that already they are fugitives 
and vagabonds on the earth. You cannot get 
away from the verdict of a guilty soul. It is 
that which banishes you; it is that which 
closes the doors of heaven against you; it is that 
which drives you out seeking for peace, for 
comfort, anywhere — anywhere. 

But why should I narrate so familiar a story ? 
There is no deliverance, my friends, from the 
consequences of sin, save by laying hold of 
the offered life of the Son of God, who can give 
to you the necessary power to conquer sin and 
to rise triumphant over evil. Take away the 
gospel of Jesus Christ and the awful representa- 
tion of Omar Khayyam is absolute truth: **We 
are walking in a world in which as we look up, 
there is only the brazen sky, and as we cry to it, 
we say to ourselves, ^It cannot help, it has no 
hand that can be outstretched; it cannot show 
mercy.'" Unless there be a forgiving God 
somewhere in the universe we may as well give 
ourselves over to despair — to absolute, irrevoca- 
ble despair. 

But, in conclusion, you may be ready to ask, 
why speak of the crime of Cain, what possible 
(14) 209 



The Castaway 

fellowship can there be between the murderer 
and ourselves, we the heirs of all the ages in 
the foremost files of time? Will you hear the 
unpleasant and awful truth? Every man of us 
is a possible Cain. There is in every one of us 
a tendency to do evil, a bias to evil. Theo- 
logians call it by the big word, peccability. It 
is the downward pull, it is that tendency which 
makes temptation dangerous even to the saint; 
it is that tendency out of which have developed 
all of the sinners and criminals who have dis- 
honored human nature and stained the pages of 
history. In Cain you behold your nature, 
distorted and perverted; in Abel you behold 
that nature subject to the will of God. It is 
the same human nature; sin makes the differ- 
ence. 

Hawthorne reminds us that the kindly com- 
panion who smiles upon us in the quiet fire of 
the grate is he who has come roaring out of 
^tna, climbing the sky like some fiend let 
loose from torment and fighting his way to a 
seat among the upper angels. It is the same 
fire in the grate and in the volcano. Our 
human nature is the same. Bring it under 
the touch of the Divine and it shall realize 
the divine purposes; leave it to its own reck- 
less aims and pursuits, and you have not only 
a possible Cain, but you have in that nature all 
of the possibilities of evil concerning which his- 

210 



The Castaway 

tory speaks. Who shall save us from ourselves? 
Where can deliverance be found ? Will intellec- 
tual gifts suffice? Cain was a man of intellectual 
resources; he was a man of affairs; he had the 
genius of administration; we are told he built a 
city; if he had been a modern man he would 
have,been a captain of industry. He was fitted 
to exercise mental sway over great enterprises 
and pursuits; yet Cain becomes a murderer. 
What does the story of Byron and of Edgar Allan 
Poe and of Robert Burns tell us? This, namely, 
that genius is powerless to stay the passions of 
man; that intellectual gifts, however magnifi- 
cent, cannot control human nature that in its 
very constitution is bent towards evil. There 
must be a higher power or we are lost. Will 
spiritual privileges save us? We are informed 
that Cain, no less than Abel, talked with God. 
To the one man the voice of God in his soul 
was life and inspiration and power; in the other 
man it only awakened rebellion and resentment. 
Spiritual privileges unused, or used improperly, 
result in a curse. I call to mind Capernaum, 
exalted unto heaven, because of its splendid 
spiritual privileges, having fellowship with the 
Son of God; and yet Capernaum is thrust 
down into hell. Spiritual privileges unused 
will not save us. 

Will a splendid physical civilization suffice? 
Cain foreshadows that civilization, and it is 

211 



The Castaway 

the line of Cain that gives to us music, architec- 
ture and the fine arts; yet, according to the 
record, as the world advances in its pursuit of 
these things that were so helpful and beneficial, 
separated from God, separated from any thought 
of God, the result is a race so wicked that 
God sweeps them from the face of the earth. 
Who shall save us? Where shall deliverance 
be found? 

We have had during the summer in our beauti- 
ful city of lyouisville, an epidemic of crime. The 
number of murders has been appalling. What 
can stay the hand of the murderer? What can 
check the passion of the libertine? What power 
can keep crime imprisoned and suppressed? Im- 
agine an ideal mayor, an ideal judiciary, and an 
ideal company of City Fathers, an ideal force 
of police, every man of whom is a Christian, 
what would be the result? Changed external 
conditions; only that. We should have what 
we ought to have, crime suppressed; we should 
have external conditions admirable in their 
character; we should have that which every 
good citizen has a right to expect from the city 
administration. 

But, friends, only symptoms have been dealt 
with. Crime can never be eradicated by any 
ideal set of circumstances; it can only be con- 
quered by the incorporation of the divine life 
into society and into the individual, and th^t 

212 



The Castaway 

means that the gospel of Jesus Christ is no mere 
theory brought forth for your intellectual con- 
sideration. It means that the gospel of Jesus 
Christ is indispensable to the redemption of so- 
ciety. I am thinking of a city described for us 
by the seer of Patmos, and he says of that city, 
no murderer walks its streets, no impure person 
soils by his presence its beautiful environments, 
nothing that is unholy enters therein, and I ask 
the question: How does it happen that you 
have got such a good city here; what is the ex- 
planation of the absence of crime; how does 
it happen it has no jails; what is the meaning 
of this serenity and of this peace? And there 
comes back the answer which is woven as a 
golden thread into every message of the gospel 
of the Son of God: *'Unto him who loves us 
and gave himself for us — unto him be glory and 
honor and dominion and power." It is the secret 
of redemptive love, and, my friends, until the 
Christ, in some fashion, lays hold of the in- 
dividual, there is no safety for him; until the 
Christ, in some fashion, is incorporated into 
human society, there is no redemption for human 
society. L<et us execute our laws by all 
means, let us hold our public officials to 
a strict public account, by all means, 
but let us lift up our eyes unto the hills, for 
unless the Lord deliver the city, then those who 
try to set it free from crime struggle in vain. 

213 



The Castaway 

May the blessing of God rest upon this mes- 
sage as it has been brought to you, and may 
we understand that for us there is no safety 
even from the crime of Cain, save as we lay 
hold of the pierced hand of the Man of Calvary. 



214 



XVIII 
IS THERE A HEAVEN? 

"In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I 
would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.'* John 
14:1. 

It is not within the province of this sermon 
to consider the etymological significance of the 
term '^heaven" or to study its various uses in 
Bible literature. It would seem almost incon- 
gruous to approach our subject in any other 
spirit than that of quick susceptibility to what- 
ever is true and beautiful and good. One needs 
to be a poet rather than a critic in dealing with 
a theme that is associated with the fragrance of 
flowers, the inspiration of music, the majesty of 
royalty and the dazzling radiance of precious 
stones. In describing the life of future blessed- 
ness, even the inspired writers are lost in 
wonder, love and praise. It is ineffable splendor, 
it is unutterable joy, it is all sights in one; it is 
fragrance and music and color and light in 
glorious confusion of imagery. '^Eye hath not 

215 



Is There a Heaven? 

seen nor ear heard, neither hath it entered 
into the heart of man to conceive the things 
which God hath prepared for those that love 
him.'' If human speech cannot compass the 
glory of earth and sea and sky, it is not 
strange that human speech should be inadequate 
in describing the glories of eternity. Is heaven 
a reality? If there be a future life, and good- 
ness is blessedness yonder as here, then heaven 
is a certainty. It is no dream that well-doing 
brings its reward of peace and joy in this 
present life. If, therefore, the soul be immortal, 
then its laws do not change, and heaven for 
the good is inevitable. To those who by 
patient continuance in well-doing seek for 
glory, honor and immortality, eternal life is a 
necessary consequence. 

Let us understand that heaven is no arbitrary 
bcstowment of the palm and crown. It comes 
to those who shall receive it in strict accord 
with the law of cause and effect. Whatsoever 
a man soweth, that shall he also reap — that 
and not something else. Well-doing is the 
seed, eternal life is the harvest, and the harvest 
is involved in the seed. Jesus plainly teaches 
that in the bestowment of future reward there 
is no principle of favoritism. Seats of honor 
are accorded to those for whom they have been 
prepared, and they have been prepared for 
those who through service and suffering have 

216 



Is There a Heaven? 

wrought a character that shall fit them for 
this eminence. 

But, it may be asked, if heaven be involved 
in character, if heaven be contained in good- 
ness, as the fragrance is contained in the flower, 
if heaven be the outworking of righteousness in 
a human soul, then what becomes of our doc- 
trine of salvation by grace? If heaven for the 
good be inevitable, then what room is there for 
grace? The question is easily answered. The 
grace of God is manifest in the gift of Jesus 
Christ, who makes possible the righteousness. 
The grace of God is displayed in the divine love 
that turns the powers of the soul towards the 
good. The grace of God is discerned in the 
rich provisions of the gospel which are the con- 
ditions of that spiritual life from which the 
heavenly experience is evolved. Because the 
eye can but see in the presence of the light, or 
the ear can but hear when the sound smites it, 
is the grace of God minimized by this marvel- 
ous adaptation of the ear to sound and the eye 
to light? Shall we conclude that there is no 
room for the divine grace in an arrange- 
iment in which the effect follows upon the 
f cause as the night follows upon the day? I do 
^-not see how it is possible for one to study 
'natural law and to observe the unerrino^ and 
uniform procedure of that law without believ- 

217 



Is There a Heaven? 

ing in the Divine goodness. If this were a 
world of chance and random, then we should be 
the victims of both nature and our own souls. 
It is because law is uniform, it is because effect 
follows upon cause, that we know when to sow 
and when to reap. Likewise God has so con- 
stituted the soul of man that life shall follow 
upon obedience; that death shall follow upon 
disobedience; that happiness shall be involved 
in character; that heaven shall come after holi- 
ness, and that holiness shall hold within itself 
heaven. 

But there are curious and inquisitive minds 
that come to us with the inquiry, where is 
heaven? Is it beyond the sunset's radiant 
glow? Is it somewhere within the great universe 
with which the telescope of the astronomer has 
made us familiar? Is it some world that shall 
bye and bye break upon the vision of the man 
who is studying the stars? Where is heaven? 
Let us answer the question by asking other 
questions. Can you locate in space an experi- 
ence? Can you place physical boundaries 
about love and beauty? Can you describe joy 
in terms of longitude and latitude? It seems to 
me that we are justified in the assertion that 
heaven is located in the soul of the Christian; 
in the growing intimacy of the soul with the 
divine; in the experience of the soul as it ad- 
vances in spiritual life. Heaven, therefore, is 

218 



Is There a Heaven? 

no distant blessedness. We begin heavenly 
life here and now. We enter into the joy of our 
Lord so soon as we begin to live the life of our 
Lord. The old song hath it right: 

The hill of Zion yields 

A thousand sacred sweets, 
Before we reach the heavenly fields, 

Or walk the golden streets. 

And does not our Lord remind us that this 
is eternal life — and the emphasis is upon the 
present tense — that we should know God, and 
Jesus Christ whom he hath sent? As Columbus 
knew that land was near when he discerned 
the things that belonged to land, so we know 
that we have passed into the confines of the 
heavenly world when we begin to feel the throb 
and thrill of a heavenly experience. 

But you still persist in your query, and 
would like to know if heaven be- not a place. 
Jesus says: '^I go to prepare a place for you/' 
Immediately Thomas begins to think of a place 
like Palestine, and so he responds: '^We know 
not whither thou goest, and how can we know 
the way?" Is this place of which you speak 
measurable and visible? Is it far or near? In 
what direction does it lie? Are there any moun- 
tains that intervene between this present place 
and the yonder place? You will observe that 
Thomas had the materialistic conception of 
heaven. And what does Jesus say? He makes 

219 



Is There a Heaven? 

answer virtually in these words: ''The place of 
which I am speaking has never been seen by 
the eye of sense. The path which leads thither- 
ward has never been trodden by physical feet. 
There are no physical mountains over which 
you are called to go. The way to that 
place is my life, my character, my spirit. I 
am the way, I am the truth, I am the light." 
Heaven, therefore, is a spiritual place, and we 
can no more describe a spiritual place than we 
can describe a spiritual being. But because we 
cannot- describe a spiritual place, it does not 
follow that this place is no reality. What is a 
spiritual environment? We know not. One 
thing we do know, that as the soul in this life 
creates its own environment, so the soul in a 
future life shall create its environment. 

Here are two men, the one who has vision 
and the other who is dominated by his senses. 
We show to both men alike a beautiful land- 
scape, and the man with vision sees it, and 
the man who is the victim of his senses 
sees it not. The environment in each instance 
is the product of the soul's life and experience. 
Place Macbeth in the midst of Elysian 
fields and there shall be for him no Elysian 
fields. Every flower will be stained with blood, 
and if there are any white presences moving 
across those fields they shall lift up hands of 
condemnation and vengeance. It matters not 

220 



Is There a Heaven? 

where the soul, conscious of crime, may be 
placed, the environment of that soul can be ex- 
pressed only in terms of fire and wrath and con- 
demnation. 

* Likewise the soul that is in harmony with 
the divine, the spirit that is attuned to the in- 
finite, sees only that which is beautiful, that 
which is glorious, that which is harmonious. 
One who has walked with God, whose soul has 
been in accord with heavenly things, creates 
just the sort of environment that is brought be- 
fore us in that marvelous description of the 
New Jerusalem given us in the Book of Reve- 
lation. We listen to sweet music entranced; 
we pluck fruit from the tree of life whose leaves 
are for the healing of the nations ; we drink of the 
river of life whose waters are clear as crystal. 
We walk robed in white, which means that we 
are conscious of purity; we live and move and 
have our being in the midst of all that is splen- 
did, all that is sublime. What does it all mean 
but a soul blossoming into harmony, into beauty, 
into glory? It is the redeemed soul looking 
upon its own image. It is like some lover 
who hears sounds which nobody else hears, who 
sees visions which nobody else sees, himself 
creating a new heaven and a new earth, made 
new by the presence and power of love in his 
own soul. 

We may conclude, therefore, that whatever 
221 



Is There a Heaven? 

sort of place heaven may be, its character, its 
topography, its scenery, are all determined by 
the character of the soul itself. You cannot see 
mountains unless there are heights in you; you 
cannot recognize wide spaces unless there are 
great distances in you. It is because man's soul 
has height and depth that he recognizes height 
and depth; it is because there are undiscovered 
sweeps of territory in human nature that we find 
ourselves under the spell of that which is vast, 
that which is far-reaching, that which is infinite. 
]\Iay I remind you that w^e have in the Scrip- 
tures no stereotyped description of heaven? 
Heaven is presented to us in various ways and 
under various figures. It is a city, and through 
its streets wends no funeral procession. It 
is a house not made with hands. It is the 
Father's house of many mansions. It is the 
better country; and, on the other hand, it is an 
inheritance, imperishable, and enduring. It is 
a wealth of glory; it is a crown of righteous- 
ness. It would seem that the exact character 
of heaven is purposely left indefinite in order 
that each soul might find heaven to be that 
which that soul most needs, that for which it 
cries out in its weariness, and in its loneli- 
ness, and frequently in its discouragement. To 
the weary heaven is rest; to the afflicted 
heaven is the painless land; to the man who is 
pursuing knowledge, heaven offers opportunity 

222 



Is There a Heaven? 

for infinite investigation; to the man who loves 
fellowship and social joy, heaven is a city with 
its multitudinous life; to the man who has 
been storm-beaten and who knov/s something 
of what it is to feel the glare of the noonday 
sun upon his head, heaven is a house offering 
protection and shelter and comfort. But, my 
friends, put together all of your aspirations in 
so far as these aspirations move along the 
lines of truth and righteousness, and the realiza- 
tion of those aspirations shall be heaven. 

I want you to observe that the inspired 
writers sound notes only of spiritual joy in their 
description of the heavenly world. Let us 
pull out a few stops from the great organ of 
eternity, and hear the thunder roll of its 
mighty music. Heaven, for instance, is fel- 
lowship. It means fellowship with God and 
with Christ and with the spirits of just men 
made perfect. The joys of heaven are social 
joys. There is no room in heaven for the man 
who prefers isolation to companionship. But 
fellowship with the good implies spiritual har- 
mony. Judas Iscariot and John the Apostle of 
lyove could never have fellowship in time or 
eternity. Only those souls that are in accord as 
respects God and love and truth and righteous- 
ness can have fellowship. That does not mean 
that the individuality of the soul is destroyed. 
It is something like this. I am reminded of 



Is There a Heaven? 

a magnificently and perfectly attuned instru- 
ment, each string maintains its individuality 
and is going to give forth its individual note, 
and yet each string is so related to every other 
string as that when the master sweeps his 
fingers across, there comes forth music enchant- 
ing, delightful, inspiring, sublime. So in the 
future world each soul shall maintain its own 
distinctive character and shall be so related 
to every other soul, by virtue of its character, 
aims and affections, as that when the Great 
Master of us all shall touch ten thousand times 
ten thousand natures there shall be brought 
forth the splendid melody described for us in 
that marvelous apocalyptic vison. To my mind 
the thought of heaven as fellowship is full of 
inspiration. We shall walk and talk with the 
sages of the ages and the centuries agone. We 
shall sit down with the mio^htv souls who have 
toiled and labored in order that this old world 
should at last be made to blossom as the rose. 

Is there any joy comparable to the joy of 
communing with the great, if there be longing 
for greatness in our souls? 

Or, again, heaven is represented to us as 
praise, and praise is pre-eminently a spiritual 
experience. It is the soul that sings. It is 
the heart that makes melody. Gladness is a 
soul experience. The pages of the Apocalypse 
crowd the streets of the fair city with thous- 

224 



Is There a Heaven? 

ands of white-robed choristers; they are sing- 
ing a new song sweeter than any strain which 
has ever thrilled the inhabitants of earth. They 
smite their harps and shont their hallelujahs. 
What does it all mean but the possession of a 
heart so full of gratitude and a soul so entirely 
in accord with the divine that praise becomes 
a spontaneous expression, even as murmuring 
sound is borne from the flowing brook, or as 
music proceeds from the harmonious move- 
ment of the spheres? The grand old poet, Whit- 
tier, sings the song aright in those touching 
lines : 

"No fitting ear is mine to listen, 

While endless anthems rise and fall; 
No curious eye is mine to measure 

The pearly gates and the jasper walls; 
Forgive my human words, O, Father, 

I go the larger truth to prove; 
Thy mercy shall transcend my longing; 

I seek but love, and thou art love." 

Again, heaven is described as attainment. It 
is the realization of the soul's powers in the di- 
rection of truth and beauty and goodness. As- 
pirations have folded their wings; the dream 
has come true; the haunting beauty which the 
artist could not seize in order that he might 
throw it upon canvas now stands before him, in 
all its clearness and distinctness. The mighty 
melody that the musician felt, but for which he 
could never fiud a proper medium of expression, 
(15) 225 



Is There a Heaven? 

at last rings out gloriously and sublimely as a 
reality. Heaven means attainment. You are 
not to understand that the soul ceases to grow 
in the heavenly world: The acorn has fulfilled 
its life as an acorn, but it still has within its 
tiny form the possible oak. We begin the 
heavenly life within the limitation of our ex- 
perience, but that experience has expansive 
power and shall open to the reception of larger 
life and larger love and larger light. We shall 
go on advancing throughout the endless ages 
of eternity; and we are hereby reminded that 
in the nature of the case there must be degrees 
of glory. Do not suppose that any one of 
us in this audience will take his stand immedi- 
ately by the side of the Apostle Paul, that man 
of rock and iron in his life, that man who suf- 
fered and toiled while here, glad all the time, 
and who went home on a wave of victory. One 
star shall differ from another star in glory, 
yet each shall give forth its full capacity for 
light. 

There are gradations of experience, grada- 
tions of happiness and gradations of reward. 
We shall be just as happy as our experience 
makes it possible to be, and that means attain- 
ment. And because the heavenly life represents 
attainment, very many, yea, all of the disci- 
plinary measures of this life shall cease to be. 
We are told that there shall be no death or sor- 

226 



Is There a Heaven? 

row or crime, not because these things are bad, 
not because they are out of harmony with the 
divine love, not because God has made a mis- 
take in permitting them, but they shall cease 
to be because they shall have served their 
ministry. We thank God for the ministry of 
death here, even though our heart is wrung 
and the hot tears course down our cheeks. 
But there shall be no death there, because the 
development of character, in so far as this 
ministry could effect it, has been accomplished; 
for the very same reason there shall be no tem- 
ple there. It is a city without a church. We 
need the ministry of the church here. We 
need its songs of praise and its prayers, but 
there we shall have no church, for all men shall 
know him, from the least to the greatest. There 
shall be no sea, not because the sea has not 
been in this natural world a beneficent ministry, 
but because there shall be no longer need of it 
for purposes of commerce, since there shall be 
only spiritual communion, knd heart shall an- 
swer unto heart and soul shall answer unto 
soul, as deep answers unto deep, or as 
octave answers unto octave. This is the 
best possible world for its purpose. Its pur- 
pose is disciplinary, and when that purpose has 
been achieved the perfect world will burst upon 
our vision. 

Furthermore, friends, heaven is the attain- 
227 



Is There a Heaven? 

ment of all that the prophets have foretold, all 
that reformers have prayed for and worked for. 
There is a splendid passage, I know not all of 
the meaning that is involved, in which is 
bronght before us some far off goal when Jesus 
Christ himself shall lay aside his authority and 
God shall be all in all. His mediation is neces- 
sary now and will continue to be necessary un- 
til every enemy shall be conquered, until 
the purpose of God concerning creation shall be 
fulfilled, and until that far-off goal shall be 
reached, toward which the whole creation 
moves. 

To my mind the thought of heaven as service 
is a most satisfactory conception. When the 
great violinist, Remenyi, was about to die, 
he hugged his violin to his bosom and we are 
told that he made the remark: '*I shall take 
this violin with me to heaven." The earthly 
instrument unquestionably shall be laid aside, 
but there shall be some medium for the ex- 
pression of the melody in the soul. We shall con- 
tinue to serve, each in harmony with his own 
peculiar fitness, each in harmony with his own 
capacity. One note that strikes me as differ- 
entiating the service of heaven from the service 
of earth is that it is pitched on such a large scale, 
the soul shall be freed from all its limitations, 
and, therefore, its work shall be vast, it shall 
move along great lines. I wish I could quote 

228 



Is There a Heaven? 

to you the splendid poem of Kipling, but I can 
only call to mind a few lines in which this con- 
ception is brought out: 

"Each in a separate star shall paint the thing as he sees it, 
For the God of things as they are." 

Here is a tremendous imagination, a man 
having a star for his world, a man occupying a 
world itself as a residence in which to do the 
work of eternity. Can you conceive of any- 
thing more splendid in its reach and in its 
sweep and in its magnificent freedom? I^et us 
not suppose that heaven is the land of the lotus- 
eaters. Let us not imagine that we shall sit 
down never more to rise up. Let us understand 
that heaven is service, that heaven has its task 
no less than earth. 

The martial note is struck when heaven is 
presented to us as victory. *'To him that over- 
cometh will I give to eat of the tree of life." 
One thing is certain, there is no room in heaven 
for the sluggard. Do you believe that the 
crown of righteousness spoken of by the inspired 
apostle is plaited in some idyllic retreat where 
one is listening to the murmuring brook or gaz- 
ing upon scenes that suggest no strife and no 
conflict? That crown of righteousness, believe 
me, is woven of fiery experience, of the trials 
of life, of the heart-aches, of burdens that we 
bear by the grace of God. Who are these ar- 
rayed in white? They are those who have 

229 



Is There a Heaven? 

come out of great tribulation, and washed their 
robes and made them white in the blood of the 
lamb. It seems to me that in the mighty pro- 
cession moving heavenward there is none to be 
found with the nerveless step of the indolent or 
indifferent; but only those who are longing for 
the battle, in order that they may win the 
victory and claim the crown. 

I have been seeking in this sermon, and I 
come now to conclude, to put before you the 
spiritual conception of the heavenly world, as 
contradistinguished from the gross and ma- 
terialistic conception. The aborigines, for in- 
stance, of our country believed that heaven 
lies beyond the great mountains; that beyond 
the great mountain there is a great river and be- 
yond the river is a wide expanse of country and 
beyond that wide expanse of country is a world 
of water and in that w^orld of water there are a 
thousand isles in which there shall be unlimited 
fishing and hunting throughout the unending 
ages. The Mohammedan believes that in 
the heavenly world there is a river of honey 
and wine flowing over beds of musk between 
banks of camphor; each spirit that goes into 
that world has numerous attendants with bas- 
kets and chalices of gold. All those who enter 
sit down at a splendid banquet and refresh them- 
selves for one hundred years and at the end of 
one hundred years the appetite is unimpaired. 

250 



Is There a Heaven? 

Who cares for a heaven that means gratifica- 
tion of the appetite? Who cares for a heaven 
that means simply the gratification of animal 
instincts and desires? 

Over against this conception I place the 
spiritual side with its notes of fellowship and 
splendid companionship; the house not made 
with hands; the Father's house of many man- 
sions; the inheritance; the wreath of glory; 
the crown of righteousness. Do you want a 
guide as you move thitherward? I point you 
to Jesus Christ. Do you want to know the 
way? I point you to his life. Do you want 
to get ready for entrance? Then begin the 
heavenly life here, now, and breathe something 
of the atmosphere that comes from the eternal 
hills. You can catch something of its fra- 
grance now if you choose. You can hear 
something of its melody now if you are only 
sufficiently developed spiritually. O, the bliss 
of over there! O, the rapture of a soul redeemed! 
O, the blessedness of service, of praise, of attain- 
ment in the glory-land! 

Old Bishop Wilberforce represents one as ask- 
ing, ^'Can you tell a plain man the plain way to 
heaven?" 

* ^Surely," is the answer, '*turn to the right 
and keep straight ahead." 

And no man has ever turned to the right, no 
man has ever dared to espouse the cause of truth 

231 



Is There a Heaven? 

and righteousness and given himself to it with 
his whole heart and soul and strength, no man 
has ever lived the Christ life, who has not gone 
straight ahead, and for him the gates will be 
opened and the welcome plaudit will be given, 
*'Well done, thou good and faithful servant, 
enter thou into the joy of thy I^ord.' 
May I conclude with these lines? 

**I know not where His islands lift their fronded palms in air, 
I only know I cannot drift beyond His love and care.'* 

And under the mighty spell of that love and 
care is heaven. May God help us to reach it. 



232 



XIX 
ARE THOSE WE CALL DEAD ALIVE? 

"Let not your hearts be troubled, ye believe in God, believe 
also in me." John 14:1. 

I do not think I can select a better text 
than that recorded in the first verse of the 
fourteenth chapter of John's Gospel: *'Iyet not 
your hearts be troubled, ye believe in God, 
believe also in me." As we utter the words, 
*'He whom thou lovest is dead," the deepest 
note of sadness in human speech has been 
sounded. It falls on the ear as the dirge of the 
night wind or as the moan of the^ weary sea. 
If we shall view death as an isolated fact apart 
from the setting of eternity, it means failure, 
defeat, despair. It is night without a star; it is 
desolation without even a gleam of comfort and 
cheer. When we look for the last time upon 
the dead face of our beloved, questions of the 
heart no less than of the intellect crowd upon 
us. They become clamorous and insistent for 
an answer under the pressure of grief; they 
concentrate themselves into a mighty cry. 

233 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

Here are some of them. Are those we call the 
dead living? Does the soul preserve its indi- 
vidual and personal life? Is immortality con- 
ditioned upon character, or is it an inherent 
attribute of the soul? Is there a physical 
resurrection, a resurrection of the body? Is this 
resurrection immediate upon death, or post- 
poned? What is the character of the spiritual 
body? What is the order of events described 
as resurrection, the second advent, the judg- 
ment? Is there an intermediate state? Is there 
a period after the resurrection and prior to the 
judgment known as the millennium? Shall we 
know each other there? 

It w^ould be manifestly impossible to consider 
at length all of these questions in a single 
discourse. The prominent question, that which 
involves all others, concerns the reality and 
certainty of a future life. If a man die, shall 
he live again? This is the question of the 
ages and the centuries. Sometimes it is a moan 
of despair, sometimes it is a clear, ringing 
soprano tone of confidence and delight. 

Let it be affirmed in the very outset of these 
remarks that w^e cannot demonstrate immor- 
tality. It does not belong to the scientific 
realm. As well ask us to give the linear meas- 
urement of a principle or the troy weight of 
an emotion, or the color of an affection. As 
well require that we discover the soul with a 

234 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

scalpel or a microscope. In this discourse and 
in our attempt to answer this inquiry, we are 
thrown upon the nature of the soul, the pri- 
meval instincts of the soul, the conclusions of 
human reason -and the Christian revelation. 
The argument is cumulative. One line of evi- 
dence may not be wholly satisfactory, but 
all the lines of evidence converge into a radiant 
and splendid conviction. 

For instance, the nature of the soul as inde- 
structible is a commonplace of thought. Even 
Hindoo philosophy declares that the soul is 
indivisible, inconsumable, indestructible. Sci- 
ence has not overthrown the affirmation. As 
far as we can go into this invisible realm of 
spiritual life we are assured of the indestruc- 
tibility of the soul of man. Fire cannot con- 
sume it, floods cannot overwhelm it. It is 
distinct from the body as the swimmer is dis- 
tinct from the flood. The body perishes because 
it is made of perishable stuff. The soul is 
immortal because it is immaterial. It follows, 
therefore, that the doctrine of a conditional 
immortality is impossible. Immortality is a 
fact apart altogether from whether a man be 
good or bad. It is true that character deter- 
mines whether or not our immortality shall 
be happy or miserable. The life that we have 
lived determines destiny. It does not in any 
wise have to do with the fact of immortality. 

235 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

That is integral, constitutional, inherent, an 
attribute of the soul. 

Or, again, it is a most significant fact, not to 
be explained apart from the admission of 
immortality, that the faith in a future life is 
universal. That is to say, all nations and kin- 
dreds and tribes and peoples have entertained 
it in some form. '4t is a belief of the race, 
it is one of the cardinal convictions of mankind. 
It was not born of argument, it will not perish 
by argument. It finds its roots in the primeval 
instincts, in the original soil of human nature, 
in the intimations and suggestions and pro- 
phecies of the soul which give no account 
of themselves and which unto this present hour 
have not been accounted for." The idea of 
immortality is innate, and does not the idea, 
being innate, require a corresponding reality? 
If it were not innate, no discussion concerning 
the subject would be possible, for no power 
of understanding could be created. The fact 
is, friends, that we feel within ourselves, all 
men feel within themselves, the stirrings of 
this future life. Concerning universal man it 
may be said: 

"Here sits he shaping wings to fly, 
His heart forebodes a mystery, 
He names the name eternity." 

Or, again, we are forced to the conclusion 
that there is a future life in harmony with 
the requirements of the law of consistency. 

236 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

In nature everything of which we know is given 
a chance to realize its life, to attain unto the 
fulfillment and completion of its being. The 
river fulfills itself in the sea, the bud fulfills 
itself in the flower, the dawn fulfills itself in 
the day. The physical body reaches its com- 
plete development before there is any arrestment 
of its progress. Shall the soul be an exception 
to this universal law? No man who has ever 
died has at the hour of death attained unto 
the fulfillment of his being. There are thoughts 
which have not been expressed, there are desires 
which have not been realized, there are intima- 
tions and gleams for which there have been 
no corresponding realities. We know ourselves 
to be incomplete, and we know further that 
when we have expressed ourselves to the very 
uttermost there is that in us which has not 
been touched, that in us which has not had 
any opportunity for its development and for 
its realization. The law of evolution, which 
to-day is receiving so much prominence in 
the intellectual world, requires completion. It 
is the progress of life from low to higher, 
but ever onward and upward until the capstone 
has been placed upon it. Some day and some- 
where these souls of ours shall attain unto 
completion, but not here. 

Or, take again the argument that is based 
upon the significance of the universe in its re- 

237 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

lation to man. It is conceded by even so nota- 
ble a scientist as Alfred Wallace, a man next in 
importance in the advocacy of evolution to Dar- 
win himself, that all the worlds exist for the 
sake of man, for him the stars were lighted and 
the sun created, for him the mountains were 
reared and the valleys were touched into peace 
and beauty. We can only interpret this universe 
in terms of man. If there were no eye, there 
could be no color; if there were no ear, there 
could be no harmony; if there were no intelli- 
gence, there could be no intelligible universe. 

The question arises, therefore, whether or 
not the infinite God would have created such a 
magnificent universe for the creature of an hour. 
Does it not seem wasteful expenditure, does it 
not seem, at least, incongruous? Is it not alto- 
gether out of harmony with the littleness of the 
creature? It is only upon the supposition that 
man is immortal, that he belongs to eternity, 
that this is only a temporary stage of action to 
fit and prepare him for a higher destiny, it is 
only in the light of the truth of immortality, that 
the meaning and significance of the universe in 
relation to man can be explained. Or, why is 
it that we have this intense and passionate 
lono:inor for life? 

*"Tis life whereof our nerves are scant, 
More life and fuller that we want; 

No soul in which is healthful breath 
Hath ever truly longed for death." 
238 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

Simply to exist, whether ia the most impover- 
ished surroundings or in the midst of splendor, 
it matters not, we cling to existence. The 
thought of annihilation is terror. We are afraid 
to die. Can v/e explain this instinct that bids 
us cling to any sort of life, to simply exist, un- 
less we are made for a fuller and richer life, and 
the longing shall pass from the satisfaction of 
mere existence into the luxury of life? 

These are some of the staid arguments that 
reason advances as men face the great beyond, 
as they come to the end of the way and look out 
upon the infinite sea which has been named 
eternity. But there is a clear word of promise in 
the Christian revelation. The argument is two- 
fold in its nature. First of all it is based on the 
fact that the life of the soul is bound up 
with the life of God. If the soul of man can 
die, then we can think of a world with a dead 
God in it. This soul is of the same nature with 
the spirit of God. It is a spark struck off from 
the central sun, but of the same nature with 
that sun. It is a drop dissevered from the 
boundless sea, but of the same nature with 
that sea, because man is made in the image of 
God, because his spirit is of the essence of the 
divine nature. We can as little think of the 
death of that spirit as we can think of the death 
of Deity. 

And there rises as the crown and consum- 
239 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

mation of all our reasoning that splendid fact 
known as the resurrection of Jesus from the 
dead. It is an historic fact. There were hun- 
dreds who saw him die. There were hundreds 
who saw him alive again. It is true that they 
could not witness the setting free of his spirit 
in the tomb. There could not be observed by 
the physical eye this spiritual process, but that 
he died they knew, and that he was alive 
again they knew. There must have been, 
therefore, the resurrection. Thev saw him 
after his death and they saw him as he 
passed into the realm of the unseen. Here 
is one splendid historic fact which declares to 
us that the reasonings of mankind throughout 
all past ages have been true, and that the in- 
timations and suggestions of the human soul 
have a solid and enduring foundation in an his- 
toric fact. We shall live again. It is as certain 
as that the soul exists. It is as sure as human 
consciousness. It is as certain as a proven his- 
toric fact can make it. And that we shall live in 
our own proper persons, each maintaining his 
own individuality', goes without saying, if im- 
mortality be true at all. If the river loses itself 
in the ]sea it ceases to be a river. If our indi- 
vidual soul loses itself in the All-Soul, it ceases 
to be immortal. It is something other than 
an immortal soul. 

In the New Testament God is spoken of a3 

2-1 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

the God of individuals, the God of Abraham, of 
Isaac and of Jacob. He is not the God of the 
dead, we are told, but the God of the living; 
that is to say, the God of the living Abraham 
and the living Isaac and the living Jacob. 
Moses shall live as Moses, and Elijah as Elijah. 
There is no comfort in the doctrine of immor- 
tality as taught by George Eliot when she sings 
of living again in lives made better, in hearts 
made purer, in thoughts that shall pierce the 
night like stars. That unquestionably is true, 
but that is not immortality. The immortality 
of fame is one thing, the immortality of influ- 
ence is another thing and the immortality of the 
soul is something that is quite distinct from 
either. Each man shall live in his own proper 
person and his pulse shall throb with the full- 
ness of the spring. 

But now comes a question of interpretation. 
Shall these physical bodies be raised from the 
grave? That is what the most of us understand 
by the resurrection of the body. I do not see how 
language could be plainer than that of the 
Apostle Paul in discussing the question, when 
he distinctly affirms '*the body thou sowest is 
not the body that shall be." There would be 
little comfort for most of us in the thought that 
this miserable body of ours is to be our dwell- 
ing place throughout eternity. There would 
certainly be no comfort to the dwarf or to the 
(16) 241 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

consumptive or to the diseased man. The Apostle 
tells us that we shall be clothed upon with a 
spiritual body different in every particular from 
the physical body. It has no physical attributes, 
it has no physical functions, it does not possess 
one single mark in common with the physical 
body. The physical body has as its marks 
physical weakness and corruption. The spir- 
itual body has as its marks glory, incorrupti- 
bility and power, '4f God shall clothe the grass 
of the field, which to-day is and to-morrow is 
cast into the oven, will he not much more clothe 
you, oh, ye of little faith?" I know not of what 
material the spiritual body shall be woven; I 
know only that it shall be adapted to its environ- 
ment as the physical body is adapted to its phys- 
ical environment. There shall be no difficulty 
of locomotion. To use physical terms, we shall 
run and not grow weary, we shall walk and not 
faint, we shall mount, as it were, upon the 
wings of the eagle. 

When does the resurrection occur? Is it im- 
mediately upon death, or is it postponed? There 
is not the slightest reference to any intermediate 
state in the writings of St. Paul. So far as that 
writer is concerned we would be led to believe 
that upon death the body goes immediately into 
the presence of God, or into the presence of 
Christ, for he is discussing the resurrection of 
the Christian, not the resurrection of the wicked. 

242 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

I do not see from the standpoint of reason how it 
could be other than an immediate entrance into 
the presence of God. God is everywhere. He 
fills this world and he fills all worlds. If we go 
from his presence here we necessarily go into 
his presence there. Wherever God is and Christ 
is, there is heaven, there is the spiritual world, 
there is the place where our dreams come true 
and all our desires that are pure and holy find 
their realization. 

What about the order of the events known 
as the resurrection, the second advent and 
the judgment? Here we enter into the realm 
of purely intellectual inquiry. This is not 
a question of the heart, it is not a question 
of the affections. It is not at all vital. The 
answer to it does not in any wise affect our 
comfort or our peace or our happiness. It is 
a fact that there shall be a resurrection, but 
whether the resurrection be immediate or post- 
poned does not invalidate the fact. It is a 
fact that Jesus Christ shall come again, but 
whether the accessories of his coming are to be 
regarded in physical terms or in spiritual terms 
depends upon the viewpoint of the man who 
is reading of the second advent. It is a fact 
that there shall be a future judgment, but 
whether that judgment be at once, as the soul 
passes out of the body into the presence of 
God, or under some awful circumstances asso- 

243 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

ciated with a heavenly court of justice, we 
may not know witli any certainty. We are 
concerned, my friends, with realities, not with 
accessories. We are concerned v/ith facts, not 
with theories. It is enough for us to know 
that we shall live again. It is enough for 
us to know that Jesus Christ shall come again. 
It is enough for us to know that there is a 
future judgment, and we can afford to await 
the long unfolding of a long eternity so far 
as these other incidents and experiences are 
concerned. 

I do not believe myself that the writers of 
the New Testament intended to give us any 
programme of future events, and for the very 
simple reason that these events of the future 
belong to a realm where all transactions are 
spiritual, and where in the nature of the case 
there can be no chronology or diagrams. There 
is one phrase which strips away all idea of 
corporal or physical manifestations in relation 
to the future, and that is the great utterance ^ 
of the inspired Apostle, *' Flesh and blood 
cannot inherit the kingdom of God.'' It is 
the spirit that survives, it is the spirits of 
men that are judged. All transactions in that 
future world are spiritual. 

Is there a millennium, a period consequent 
upon the resurrection and prior to the judgment? 
It is strange how the idea of a millennium 

244 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

or the reign of a thousand years upon this 
earth upon the part of Christ, should have 
become such a confirmed conviction in the 
minds of many Christian people. The Apostle 
Paul has not one solitary word to say concerning 
it. There is no mention of it in gospel or 
epistle. The only reference is in the most 
obscure book of the New Testament, the Book 
of Revelation. 

To my mind the theory of a millennium 
is mechanical and arbitrary. It supposes a 
physical reign of a physical Christ over physical 
beings for a thousand years. Jesus Christ in 
his teachings directly controverts any such idea, 
for he claims that his reign is to be spiritual, 
the reign of ideas, the reign of principles, 
the reign of righteousness, the reign of good. 
It supposes, this theory of a millennium, that 
the dead will be raised with physical bodies 
and come back to this earth to join those 
yet living upon it and that over these physical 
persons Jesus Christ will exercise sway. Paul 
distinctly affirms that these physical bodies 
will not be raised again, but that we shall 
be clothed with spiritual bodies fitted to a 
spiritual environment. 

I believe in the reign of Christ, not for a 
thousand years, but for all eternity. I believe 
that the time shall come when every knee shall 
bow and every tongue shall confess, to the glory 

245 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

of God the Father. I believe in the ultimate 
triumph of righteousness. I believe that this 
old earth and all the worlds shall be brought 
under the sway of him who was lifted up for 
the purpose of drawing all men unto him. I do 
not believe in any provisional reign when the 
order of government is of the earth earthy, 
whereas the ascended Christ is enthroned in a 
spiritual life, and reigns and rules over the na- 
tions of the earth by virtue of his might and 
power. 

But, in conclusion, for I must speak no longer, 
shall we know each other there? Perhaps there 
is no deeper cry which comes from the human 
soul than that inquiry, shall we know each other 
there? I have a quotation written by the wife 
of Prof. Huxley as his epitaph, as sad as the 
moan of misery could be: 

"And if there be no meeting^ past the grave. 
If all be darkness, silence; yet 'tis rest. 

Be not afraid, ye waiting hearts that weep, 
For God still giveth his beloved sleep. 

And if an endless sleep he will — so best.'* 

That will not dry tears, that will not comfort 
aching hearts, that will not irradiate the gloom 
with brightness. We shall not know each other 
in these physical relations. Jesus distinctly 
affirms, "There they neither marry nor are given 
in marriage, but shall be as the angels of God.'' 

But may we not know each other by virtue of 
the possession of memory; may we not know 

246 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

that such and such a one sustained such and 
such an endearing relationship to us in that 
earthly life? Memory has not perished. Heaven 
is not a duplicate of earth, but certainly that 
which is spiritual on earth survives, and, there- 
fore, love will survive and love shall know its 
own. In that remarkable book of George Eliot, 
** Daniel Deronda," you remember that two 
strangers, Mordecai and Deronda, recognized 
each other on the basis of soul affinity. The 
old Jew says, '^I was waiting for you and I knew 
you," and there is an answering response in the 
heart of the youth. We cannot know to what 
extent these spiritual aflfinities enter into the 
question of future recognition, but I cannot 
doubt, my friends, that a longing so intense, so 
passionate, as this longing to know those that 
have passed on beyond shall somehow and in 
some way find its satisfaction. 

IvCt us lay hold of the certainty of a future 
life. Christianity has no word of sadness to 
utter concerning death. Its note is triumphant: 

"Oh, Death, where is thy sting? 
Oh, Grave, where is thy victory?" 

The sailor who goes far from land must be 
guided by the stars or else he shall be over- 
thrown by wave and wind, and those of us 
who expect to sail over this sea of life in 
any clear, definite course must take our reck- 
oning from the skies. It is folly to suppose 
. 247 



Are Those We Call Dead Alive? 

that you cau live successfully this earthly 
life apart altogether from the influence of a 
heavenly life. We cannot avoid thinking of 
the beyond, and thinking of the beyond we 
are influenced by it. Death is no blind alley, 
it is a thoroughfare. It closes on the twilight, 
to open on the dawn. 

I have been reading, as you have, the farewell 
of Joe Jefferson to his many friends, and, as 
it turned out, his farewell to earth. It is 
beautiful, it is Christian, it is radiant. It sums 
up in a few sentences the very brightest thought 
of a great Christian hope. I was particularly 
struck with this sentiment: '^I have been more 
than repaid by the affection of my friends 
which has followed me like a stream of sun- 
shine flowing after the man going down the forest 
trail over the hills to the land of morning.^' 
It is the land of morning towards which we 
are pressing. We will not say good-night to 
our dead, but in some fairer world we shall say 
good-morning. 



248 



XX 

WAS THE IDEAL OF OUR FATHERS 
PRACTICABLE?* 

The one splendid, luminous ideal of the 
fathers was Christian union. All else, distinc- 
tive in aim and work, converges to this goal. 
In order to Christian union there must be a 
sense of proportion in the study of the Scrip- 
tures, else Old Testament requirements will 
receive equal emphasis with New Testament 
teaching. In order to answer the question, 
what is necessary to the constitution of a 
church of Jesus Christ — what faith, what ordi- 
nances, what organization, what ministry? — 
it was essential to ascertain whether or not 
all Scripture is of equal value and of equal 
binding import in determining the worship and 
discipline of the church. There can be no 
Christian union on the basis that all Scripture is 
of equal importance as respects the constitution 
of the church. Old Testament ritualism and 



*An address delivered before the Missouri Christian Lecture- 
ship, in 1904, at Fulton. 

249 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

New Testament simplicity caunot have fellow- 
ship. With very great earnestness and applying 
the methods of historical criticism, Mr. Camp- 
bell was led to draw the sharp distinction, 
so clearly recognized by the New Testament 
writers, between the law and the gospel, and 
to distribute the facts of Scripture in the various 
departments and dispensations to which they 
severally and collectively belong. Here was 
a great stride toward the simplification of Chris- 
tianity as respected its constituent elements 
of faith, worship and discipline. The conclu- 
sion reached was that as the Old Testament 
is sufficient for the worship, discipline and 
government of the Old Testament church, so 
the New Testament is sufficient for the worship, 
discipline and government of the New Testa- 
ment church. If, then, we are to discover 
the faith required for membership in the New 
Testament church, or the organization and 
government of that church, our source of 
information is the New Testament. Ac- 
cepting this plain truth, the fathers began 
the work of exploration, discovery, over- 
throw and construction. They were led to 
accept simple faith in Christ as the only and 
sufficient confession of faith. This meant for 
them the overthrow of all human confessions 
as a basis of fellowship. They were led to 
accept immersion as the only and sufficient 

250 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

baptism for all who professed this faith and 
were honest in their desire and purpose to 
turn away from sin. This meant for them 
the overthrow of infant or adult sprinkling 
or the substitution of any other form or cere- 
mony for Christian baptism. They were led 
to accept Jesus Christ as the only head of 
his church and therefore to resent clerical or 
priestly arrogation of authority or any legislative 
functions exercised by ' 'superior or inferior 
church judicatories." 

They were led to accept the simple organiza- 
tion of the New Testament church, as far 
as that organization was plainly outlined, in 
opposition to all accretions and ornamentations 
of human device. They v/ere led to accept 
the words of the New Testament, as opposed 
to any and all interpretations of these words — 
in all matters of doubtful disputation, giving 
to each man the right of private interpretation, 
but insisting that such interpretation should 
not be made a test of fellowship or that such 
interpretation should not be preached to the 
subversion and troubling of the churches. 
lyittle by little, step by step, with open minds 
and hearts, they threaded their way back 
through centuries of theology, clerical tyranny 
and corrupt organizations and practices into 
the very presence of Christ and his apostles, 
and asked for guidance from him wlio alone 

251 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

could speak as one having authority in all 
that pertained to the life and continuance of 
his church. 

Christian union, based on the essentials of 
New Testament Christianity, was the vision 
splendid which smote their hearts with irresis- 
tible charm and power. 

This was the ideal, the one ideal, of the 
fathers. Was it a practical ideal? Before 
undertaking an answer to this question, it 
may be proper to encourage our souls with 
the reflection that very much of the contention 
of the fathers has been accepted — whether 
directly or independently of the influence 
exerted by the Disciples of Christ matters not. 

The abuses against which Mr. Campbell 
contended have largely passed away. Clerical 
authority in the realm of conscience is virtually 
dead among Protestants. Creed acceptance is 
no longer made binding on the membership 
of the churches, and the creeds are accepted 
lightly and with mental reservation even by 
the preachers and professors and officials. The 
right of individual interpretation of Scripture 
has conquered. The ability of the people to 
understand for themselves what is essential 
to life and salvation is more and more recog- 
nized. The identification of theology with 
Christianity is denied, and theology has come 
to take its place as a purely human science — to 

252 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

be accepted as a help to the understanding 
of the truth, and as having no binding authority 
because approved by synod or council. Our 
liberty in Christ is secure. A protest now 
and then does not intimidate. We simply claim 
and exercise the right as part of our Christian 
inheritance. False and arbitrary tests of fellow- 
ship have ceased to be barriers in co-operative 
Christian work. Marvelous has been the prog- 
ress in the way of a simplification of Chris- 
tianity, or rather in divesting it of its man-made 
accessories and restoring it to its pristine 
beauty. But what of the future? Is Christian 
union practicable on the simple basis of the 
primitive faith and ordinances and life? This 
is the question we are to consider. And first 
we are to think for a few moments of the 
* 'faith once for all delivered to the saints." 

What does the New Testament require? 
In its last analysis, or rather in the simplest 
statement of the faith that is necessary to 
fellowship, does the New Testament require 
anything more, in the feeble and necessarily 
imperfect beginning of the Christian life, than 
a faith which is sufficiently strong to lead us to 
accept Jesus as I^ord? If one is honest in 
confessing Jesus as L<ord and gives proof of 
that sincerity in submitting to the ordinance 
of baptism — an ordinance which has no meaning 
apart from the authority of Christ — is he not 

253 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

entitled to fellowship, whatever may be his 
ignorance of the rich content of the Christian 
faith or his misapprehensions and wrong concep- 
tions of that faith? Certainly we cannot require 
that he should have an accurate, full and 
comprehensive understanding of all that is 
involved in the sublime truth that Jesus is 
the Christ of God. That would exclude all 
save the most gifted minds, and even the 
most gifted cannot in this life grasp adequately 
with the intellect that which must so largely 
be an experience of the heart. As a matter 
of fact, we accept this confession of faith 
from a child or an ignorant person, knowing all 
the while that the child, by virtue of its 
limitations, can mean only the simplest thing — 
''I love you and want to do what thou wouldst 
have me do.'^ It is this simple, reverent faith 
of the child which marks the beginning of 
the Christian life. 

Nor do we, nor can we, rightfully require 
that one should have arrived at this simple 
faith in any uniform or stereotyped way. One 
man believes in Jesus Christ as the Son of God 
apart altogether from any reasoned argument 
based on prophecy or miracle. He has seen 
the face of the Master. He has been brought 
in some way to feel the spell of his beauty. 
He has fallen in love with the great personage. 
Jesus satisfies his deepest needs. He does not 

254 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

know prophecy. He has never studied the 
relation of miracle to faith. He is in love 
with the all-beautiful One, and would follow 
him to the ends of the earth. Are there not 
souls that instinctively and intuitively come 
into possession of this faith? The intellectual 
in the man is subordinated and the affectional 
nature is dominant. Is not such faith genuine? 
And yet it is not based on any other evidence 
than the simple beauty of the character of 
Christ. The man says: I cannot explain the 
origin of the dawn as it brightens into the 
day. I only know the sun has arrived and 
that, giving myself to its beams, I am warmed 
and cheered and satisfied. As such an one 
grows in the knowledge of divine things, 
he may come to see the relation of prophecy 
and miracle to this radiant and divine being. 
In the beginning, he is won by the smile 
on his face, by his compassion and tenderness, 
by his wonderful love and beauty. 

If a man had only the four gospels, and 
as a result of reading them should be :-',o 
completely dominated by the great personage 
of whom they speak as to give himself 
utterly to following him, would we be author- 
ized in denying him Christian fellowship 
because he was ignorant of the story of creation 
or knew nothing of Jonah or the Niuevites? 
Or per contra, suppose that he is a Bible 

255 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

scholar and holds honest conclusions as to 
the literary structure of the Bible different 
from those commonly denominated orthodox — 
placing a different construction on the aim 
and purpose of certain portions of Scripture 
from that commonly accepted — should his faith 
in Christ be impugned? '^Who art thou that 
judgest thy brother? To his own Master he 
standeth or falleth." 

If it shall seem to us that his critical 
conclusions contravene faith in Christ, we are 
to remember that such conclusions (if the 
man himself is to be believed) do not invalidate 
his own faith. It is his personal faith, and 
not what we may think is necessary to it, 
that entitles him to Christian fellowship. It is 
the faith and not its method of attainment 
that is the essential thing. Only that which is 
essentially connected with that faith, without 
which that faith in a given individual would be 
impossible, can be made part of the faith 
that is necessary to Christian fellowship. If 
there be one thing or many things, accepted 
by others, not essential to this individual's 
faith in Christ, then in his case it is not 
essential to his acceptance as a follower of 
Christ and our brother. Remember that we 
ask not one word concerning his faith in 
anything in the Bible or out of it — only are 
we concerned about his faith in Christ, assured 

256 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

that if he is right in his relation to Christ, 
he will get right in regard to other matters and 
things. 

In other words, essential Christian faith need 
not, in order to its validity, lay hold of all 
that is involved logically in the sublime truth 
that Jesus is the Christ of God. If we could 
accept at once all that is meant, then what 
chance for growth in the knowledge of our 
Lord and Savior Jesus Christ? 

In a sense, of course, we accept in our 
confession of faith in Christ all that is logically 
involved, just as in our acceptance of the 
law of gravity we receive all that it means 
though we may be ignorant of a thousand 
applications of it. It would not be claimed 
that an intelligent apprehension of the thousand 
unknown applications is essential to our faith 
in gravity. My contention is that essential 
faith is of the simplest character, and that 
only the essential faith can be made a basis of 
Christian fellowship. 

What is logically involved in our faith in 
Christ brings before us all the realm of revela- 
tion — the unique relation he sustains to God, 
his supernatural birth, his words and works, 
his death, burial, resurrection and ascension, 
his sinlessness, his supreme authority as Lord, 
his relation to the Old Testament, with all 
the high and rich meaning of these great truths. 
(17) 257 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

Here is a whole library of Christian truth — 
a territory so vast that no theologian has ever 
found its limits. The essential faith, in the 
very nature of things, cannot intelligently 
accept all that is involved in the tremendous 
proposition that Jesus is the Christ of God. 
It need only lay hold of the hem of his 
garment — the acceptance of him as Lord — able 
to save — the one who died for us and who 
proclaims God's love — the one who has opened 
the way to glory for us — the one whom we 
can absolutely trust to- tell us what to do — 
and whom we can follow in life and through 
death. 

It is one thing, however, to be ignorant 
of much that is involved in Christian faith 
and while ignorant of much to hold fast to 
that which is essential to spiritual life and 
salvation, and quite a different thing to have 
a knowledge that certain things are logically 
and integrally involved in that faith and to 
deny them as essential to the integrity of such 
faith. The latter makes impossible the accep- 
tance of the Christ of the New Testament, 
and such an one necessarily shuts himself out 
from Christian fellowship. 

There are only two courses open— one for 
the simple and untrained mind who says, 
*'I believe in Christ," meaning thereby a loving 
loyalty to his will — waiting for the opening 

258 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

and unfolding of the great truth which has 
been accepted; the other course is to have 
a fuller knowledge — the result of study and 
investigation of what is involved — and to deny 
the thing involved as true. As respects the 
former, we do not hesitate to grant fellowship; 
as respects the latter, fellowship will not be 
asked. 

We have no right, however, to insist that 
the intelligent who admit all that is involved in 
Christian faith shall be made to accept our 
interpretation of the subject matter. The right 
of private interpretation is a fundamental prin- 
ciple of Protestantism. We dare not make 
our exegesis the test of fellowship. Christian 
union on the basis of this simple faith in 
Christ seems practical. If, however, we insist 
upon our interpretations of this faith as essen- 
tial to fellowship; if we brand with heresy 
those who, while accepting the great facts 
involved in this faith, place a different con- 
struction on these facts; if we demand that 
all shall arrive at this faith in the same way, or 
that this simple confession shall be as intelli- 
gently apprehended in the beginning as after 
long years of fellowship tvith the Master, or 
if we shall demand the acceptance of the 
theological speculations engendered by this 
faith as part of essential Christianity, then 
Christian union shall remain only a beautiful 

259 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

dream. We are concerned with nothing more 
than the loyal, honest confession of faith in 
Christ as the Son of God. We ask no further 
question. We leave the individual with God 
and his conscience. And now as respects the 
ordinance of baptism — is Christian union prac- 
ticable? Is it at all probable that the whole 
Protestant Christian world shall ever accept 
immersion only as Christian baptism? 

It seems to me that right here optimism finds 
its greatest check. If Christian baptism were 
a church ordinance — established by the church 
with a view to accomplishing a special purpose 
— then it would be within the province of 
the church to change it or to dispense with 
it, but if it be an appointment of Jesus Christ, 
to meddle with it in any way is to impugn 
the authority of our I^ord. Here, then, is 
the real issue. Is baptism a church ordinance 
— arising in the development of the life of 
the church to meet a special and temporary 
need, or is it based on the authority of the 
head of the church? If the latter, we dare not 
sacrifice it even for the sake of Christian union. 
A union based on any compromise of the 
authority of Jesus Christ is not Christian. It 
would be a caricature and a fraud. There is 
left for us no other course than to exalt the 
authority of Christ and to insist on baptism 
as having its meaning and standing in relation 

260 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

to that authority. But iu our insistence on 
immersion as baptism, it seems unnecessary 
to insist upon the philosophy of baptism as 
essential to Christian fellowship. In what 
sense is baptism for the remission of sins? 
In answering this question differences of opinion 
and interpretation are permissible and will 
always exist. It is the command which is 
important. We are divided among ourselves 
as to formal and actual remission. Our scribes 
have not settled this question for us. With 
what sort of propriety can we make a fractional 
interpretation — an interpretation, that is, not 
unanimously accepted by ourselves, a test of 
fellowship for others? I<et us preach baptism 
as an appointment of Jesus Christ; let us insist 
upon the obedience enjoined as a test of loyalty 
to divine authority, and let us leave the specula- 
tive parts of the question to the individual. 
If he reaches a wrong conclusion, the honesty 
and validity of his obedience is not involved. 

In pressing on to the realization of our ideal 
there are some things we need to guard against 
as hindering our success and some things we 
ought to welcome as helping the quest and at- 
tainment. 

We must guard against lessening the power 
of our special contention by emphasizing and 
exaggerating unimportant matters. Is it, for 
instance, a matter of vital importance — an 

201 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

article of a standing or falling church — whether 
our ministers should be known as **Rev." or 
'^Dr.''? Certainly there is no disposition on 
the part of the people to unduly exalt the 
minister of religion. There is no recognition 
of any superior or magical virtue in the bestow- 
ment of the title. Nobody believes that affixing 
the title of ^'Rev.'^ to a preacher's name means 
anything more than an indication of the special 
work in which he is engaged. Why waste 
time in discussing such questions? We have 
surely passed the period of quibbling. If a 
preacher prefers to have John Smith, M. D. V., 
rather than Rev., let us gratify his taste. 
But why reflect upon the Rev. Smith and 
have it appear that he is a bloated specimen 
of religious pride and is seeking through a title 
to gain power over the brotherhood? We are 
summoned to a more serious task. Why whittle 
sticks when we are called upon to build a 
temple? We shall never have Christian union 
on the basis of the unimportant and trivial. 

Furthermore, we must quit patronizing our 
religious neighbors. We have not learned all 
of truth. There are some things in which 
we need instruction. When we speak of the 
'^sects'' in a somewhat contemptuous tone — 
meaning, *'We thank thee, oh, God, we are 
not as these publicans,'' — what is it but subli- 
mated Pharisaism? Do we suppose for a moment 

262 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

that such manifest injustice will tend toward 
a closer fellowship? Calling hard names has 
never yet promoted fellowship. If we are really 
in earnest in promoting Christian union, let 
us at least be courteous. I would not tone 
down the truth. I would preach it in love. 
Let us reason together, but brickbats are sugges- 
tive of vulgarity. Hear these words from 
Alexander Campbell: *'This plan of making 
our own nest and fluttering over our own brood ; 
of building our own tent and of confining 
all goodness and grace to our noble selves and 
the elect few who are like us, is the quintessence 
of sublimated pharisaism. The old Pharisees 
were but babes in comparison with the modern, 
and the longer I live, the more I reflect upon 
God and man, heaven and earth, the Bible 
and the world, the Redeemer and his church, 
the more I am assured that all sectarianism 
is the offspring of hell, and that all differences 
about words and names and opinions, hatched 
in Egypt, Rome or Edinburgh, are like the 
frolics of drunken men, and that where there 
is a new creature or a society of them, with 
all their imperfections and frailties and error 
in sentiment, in views and opinions, they ought 
to receive one another, and the strong to support 
the infirmities of the weak, and not to please 
themselves. To lock ourselves up in the band- 
box of our own little circle; to associate with 

263 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

a few units, tens or hundreds as the pure church, 
as the elect, is real Protestant monkery — it is 
evangelical pharisaism/' And while w^e are 
speaking our mind, let us understand that 
Christian fellowship will not be promoted by 
suspicion or jealousies or mean rivalries in the 
conduct of our religious journals. An insipid 
journalism is to be avoided, for dullness is in- 
excusable, but a nagging, crude and fussy 
journalism — seeking to wear the purple of au- 
thority on the ground of self-claimed orthodoxy 
which largely consists in denunciation and mis- 
erable innuendoes — needs to be rebuked. I am 
speaking of an evil of w^hich many instances 
might be cited. There are some editors and 
even a few preachers w^ho are '^hounds of the 
Irord'' and who never think of * 'green pastures 
and still waters" without a feeling of disgust 
wath the serenity of the situation. Give them 
a heretic, and heaven has no sweeter joy. It 
would seem that heretics are specially provided 
for their delectation. 

A religious journal has unquestionably the 
right to criticise the public utterances of any 
man. It can condemn whatever may seem to 
itself hurtful in doctrine. But when it uses its 
power and influence to turn a whole brother- 
hood (or such part of the brotherhood as it can 
influence) against a man^s view in such way as 
to unduly prejudice them against him, and ad- 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

vises them to regard him as an alien and an 
enemy of the truth who ought to be cast out 
from their fellowship, it is guilty of an outra- 
geous abuse of its power. Heresy consists not in 
disloyalty to any man's doctrine but in disloyal- 
ty to Christ, and as long as the individual avows 
his loyalty to Christ, no religious journal can 
have the right to denounce him as a heretic. 
And further, when a man disavows his loyalty 
to Christ, the authority to discipline him lies 
not in a religious journal, but in the congrega- 
tion with which he is affiliated. And if we 
would realize the desire of the fathers for a 
united brotherhood we must recognize that 
there is no Cincinnati, Lexington, Louisville or 
St. Lrouis standard of doctrine, to which the 
preachers of the church must either conform or 
be driven out of our fellowship; that our minis- 
try should be left to regard themselves as free 
men in Christ Jesus, owing supreme allegiance 
to the great Teacher and bound in loyalty to 
him to advocate always and everywhere what 
they believe to be the truth rather than the 
doctrine of any party. It is within the right of 
the humblest preacher to say to all religious 
journals in this matter, *^Let no man trouble 
me, for I bear in my spirit the marks of the 
Lord Jesus. ' ' Conscious loyalty to Christ is our 
claim of independence. 

We must welcome all truth and not be afraid 

265 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

of it. Openness of mind means progress. I^et 
us not impoverish our souls by refusing to hear 
only from Paul. Apollos has something to give 
us, and Cephas likewise has a message. Pro- 
vincialism is certainly a barrier to Christian 
union. Some one has remarked that the **new 
biblical scholarship is to be the chief agency in 
bringing about the union of Christendom. Dis- 
unity, separation and division rest largely on 
scholastic definitions of Scripture. It is by 
these largely arbitrary differences that the polem- 
ic spirit has been bred, and men have been 
separated by formal didactic statements rather 
than by real differences.'' If the newer study 
gives us a deeper and truer insight into the 
truth of God, let us give it hospitable w^elcome. 
Of all religious bodies, we are least trammeled 
in our pursuit of truth. Loyalty to Christ and 
the limitations imposed by his authority — this 
is our priceless heritage. We are a great peo- 
ple. Hasty and inconsiderate condemnation of 
higher criticism is evidence of immaturity. We 
are too well seasoned to get scared. It is possi- 
ble that higher criticism has something to give 
us. At least if it is empty-handed, we shall 
soon discover the fact. In the meantime, we 
need not fear that it is loaded. Our attitude 
should be that of those who care only for the 
truth and who want only the truth. 

How about church federation? — If it can 

266 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

help on Christian union, without the sacrifice 
of conscious loyalty to Christ, I should think it 
would be very gladly welcomed. As far as I 
can see, it is giving organic expression to a 
principle which our people have recognized all 
the while — that of co-operating with other reli- 
gious bodies as far as we can do so without the 
sacrifice of convictions we deem to be vital. 
Certainly we want to do this. It is right in line 
with our contention. We do not minimize our 
special testimony; we augment our practical 
efficiency. While we must guard against pro- 
vincialism and Pharisaism and the undue em- 
phasis of the unimportant, we must maintain 
our dignified position as a religious body that 
knows its ground and has no apologies to make 
for its contention. It seems to me that there are 
two clearly marked tendencies among us — the 
one which regards with suspicion the considera- 
tion of new questions and the necessary adapta- 
tion to new conditions, and the other which re- 
gards the new culture as a substitute for the old 
faith and a sort of contemptuous disregard of 
our special and peculiar testimony. Of the two 
tendencies, the latter is the worse. Better that 
we hold fast whereto we have attained, even if 
we miss much that might prove our enrichment 
than that we should minimize or lose the defi- 
nite essentials of the Christian faith. Why can 
we not hold fast to first principles and oo on to 



Was the Ideal of Our Fathers Practicable? 

perfection? Let us not forget the two words 
which are our heritage — liberty and loyalty — 
liberty within the limitations of loyalty. To 
no religious body has there ever come a greater 
opportunity to hasten the bright and shining 
day of Christian union. Let us not prove re- 
creant to our high trust. It may be that the 
ideal of' the fathers will not be realized in our 
day, but the clearly marked tendency points 
that way. 



268 



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